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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY 
WATERLOW AND SONS LIMITED, 
LONDON DUNSTABLE AND WATFORD 
2 
Fad i eae 


DESIGN IN THE 
THEATRE 


Commentary by George Sheringham and 
James Laver, together with siterary 
contributions by E. Gordon Craig, 
Charles B. Cochran and Nigel Playfair 


ae! 


EDITED BY GEOFFREY HOLME 
NEW YORK: ALBERT & CHARLES BONI INC., 66, FIFTH AVENUE 
LONDON: THE STUDIO, LIMITED, 44, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.2 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

British Designers in the Theatre, by George Sheringham . 1 
To the English Designers of Sceneries and Costumes ee FE. Gordon Craig 10 
Letter from Nigel Playfair. 14 
The Play and the Scene, by Charles B. Cochran _ 15 
Continental Designers in the Theatre, by James Laver 17 
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR ae 

Bakst, Leon . ; f ; : : d : : : 78 
Baranowsky, A. : 112 
Bradshaw, Laurence ; ; ; ; : : 61 
Fraser, Lovat . : : , : : ; : : 1 
Leefe, Reginald : : : 52 
Stern, Ernst . ‘ d : : é : ‘ : ° 95 
Wilkinson, Norman . ; ‘ : : : : 18 
Zinkeisen, Doris ; : ; ; : d ¢ ; 5 35 

ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE 

ALLINSON, ADRIAN . : ; : ; : : . AO, 41 
Andreenko, Michael . : : : 5 : ; . 82, 83 
Aravantinos, P. : 5 : i ‘ ; F 105 
Armstrong, John. ; : : : : ; 46 
BaxksT, LEON . : : s : ; . PIT. JOMIS, tO PO 
Barbey Valdo . ; ; : ; 103 
Barthe, Victor . : : ; ; ‘ ; : : 72 
Beaton, Cecil . : 3 ; : : ; , 45 
Benois, Alexandre . : ; : * ; ‘ : ; 84 
Bernard, Oliver : : : : : ; : : . 43, 44 
Brill, Reginald : 4 ; : 39 
Cairp, M. : : : 60 
Campbell, Jean : 4 : 64 
Clarke, Polly Hill . : : : : ; 22 
Conor, William : 3 ; , ‘ : : 7 26 
Craig, E. Gordon . E y ; ; ; : : : 3, 4 
Cziossek, Felix : g : ‘ : : : : ; 98 
DERAIN, ANDRE : : ; ; : 5 86 
mmercue,|.G.  . ; , ; : : 88 
Dresa. tz ; ; ; ne? 4 85 
Dulac, Edmund ; : : : : : : iS 
Ensor, A.C. . ; ‘ : : : ; ‘ 56 


FEDOROVSKY, F. 
Fraser, Lovat . 
Frey, Maxim 


GEDDES, NORMAN-BEL 
Gee, Philippa . 
Gliese, Rochus. 
Gontcharova, Natalia 
Grant, Duncan 
Griinewald, Isaac 
Gudurian, G. . 


HAMMOND, AUBREY . 
Hampton, Michael 
Hembrow, Victor 
Heslewood, ‘Tom 
Holzmeister, Clemens 
Horder, B. Morley 
Hugo, Jean Victor 


IRVING, LAURENCE 
JONES, ROBERT EDMOND 
KauFFer, E. MCKNIGHT 


Larionov, M.. 
Leefe, Reginald 


McGuinness, NoRAH 
Mahnke, Adolph 


Marc-Henri and Laverdet 


Martini, Alberto 
Medlycott, Cicely 
Messel, Oliver . 
Morrison, R. Boyd 


Nasu, PAUL 
Nivinsky, Ign. . 


OrLIK, EMIL 


PILEARTZ 9G 
Pirchan, Emil . : 
Pollock, B., of Hoxton 
Polunin, Vladimir 
Popova, L. 

Pryde, James 


vil 


118, 119 
‘ 36 


116, 117 
24, 25 


RICKETTS, CHARLES 
Rotha, Paul 
Rutherston, Albert 


SALKELD, CECIL 
Schlemmer, Oskar 
Schmidt, Kurt 
Schumacher, Fritz 
Schwabe, Randolph . 
Shelving, Paul . 
Sheringham, George 
Sievert, Ludwig 
Sime, S. H. 

Stern, Ernst 
Stowitts . : 
Strnad, Oskar . 
Strém, K. 


'TANNENBERG, WINKLER 
URBAN, JOSEPH 

Van Dam, JAN 
WENGER, JOHN 
Wijdewelt, H. Th. 
Wilkinson, Norman . 


Willoughby, Vera 


ZINKEISEN, Doris 


Dorothy Mullock 


Vii 


THE EDITOR DESIRES TO ACKNOWLEDGE * 
ASSISTANCE RENDERED TO HIM IN 
PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME BY TI 
ARTISTS WHO HAVE KINDLY ALLOWED TH. 
DESIGNS TO BE REPRODUCED, AND ALSO 
MRS. LOVAT FRASER, MR. BOYD MORRISO 

AND THE THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE — 


| 


BRITISH DESIGNERS IN THE THEATRE, WITH 
SOME REFERENCE TO AMERICAN DESIGNERS 


BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM 


HEN I set about finding the material for this book I was 
confident that I could make a collection of splendid drawings 
for the stage by British designers: this confidence was 
perfectly justified. Reproduced in this book are the drawings 
I expected to find and did find. And in addition to these 
I was fortunate enough to receive three valuable contributions to the 
Commentary of this book from three of the most distinguished men 
of the English theatre: A message from Mr. Gordon Craig, a letter from 
Mr. Nigel Playfair and an article from Mr. Charles B. Cochran. And also 
permission to reproduce Mr. James Pryde’s beautiful picture. Mr. Pryde 
has never been persuaded to work in the theatre, but to his fundamentally 
original mind can be traced many developments in the drawings of modern 
stage-designers. 

But when I began my task I was confident that I should discover the artists 
(who did the drawings in this book) busily at work in many different theatres. 
How pleasant it would have been to write a foreword about the theatrical 
lion lying down with the designing lamb ; about the great advance of design 
in the theatre, during the last few years ; and the keen interest taken by most 
theatre managers, in the question of well-designed costumes and scenery ! 
Of the steadily increasing number of theatres where they employ an artist 
to create new scenery and costumes! How pleasant to have written of how 
the designers are gaining greater and wider experience through the many 
problems which they are asked to solve, or again, of how the theatre is 
keeping pace in its decoration with the modern movements in music and 
painting! ... But the distressing fact is that I found the designers in 
their own studios—for when the truth is told: decoration in the English 
theatre (one might say British theatre) is still, for the greater part, bound 
in a tradition, not old but bad, dating back to a time when the esthetic was 
at its lowest ebb in this country. 

One can honestly assert that if it were not for the vision and educated taste 
of three or four men only, there would be no stage decoration in the profes- 
sional theatres worth publishing books about ; for the main path of traditional 
scene painting and costume making has been trodden flat—very flat—by 
many persons all tramping the way that they hope will lead them to com- 
mercial safety : that constant hope and ideal of the Englishman ! 

What has been done to encourage the new spirit of English design in the 
theatre is almost entirely the work of the leading producers of the time : 
but for Mr. Nigel Playfair’s vision and courage Lovat Fraser might never 
have had his few years of brilliant achievement in the theatre (there was no 
one with like vision, alas! to coax Beardsley across the footlights). Mr. 
Granville Barker gave Mr. Norman Wilkinson and Mr. Albert Rutherston a 
splendid opportunity ; while Mr. Paul Shelving has designed over a hundred 
productions for Sir Barry Jackson (himself a fine designer), and Mr. Ricketts’ 


1 


b 


setting for Miss Thorndike’s ‘‘ St. Joan ” was, within its convention, one 
of the most beautiful things that has been seen on the London stage. For 
Mr. Cochran, Mr. William Nicholson designed his delicious “ Hogarth 
Ballet’? and Mr. Edmund Dulac drew his “ Cyrano ”’ decorations ; and for 
him too, Miss Doris Zinkeisen and Mr, Oliver Messel have done excellent 
work. 

A long list could be made of plays, light operas, and ballets, designs for 
which have been created by artists for these three or four producers during 
the last ten years or so; and this could be lengthened by naming the pro- 
ductions done for the Irish theatres of Dublin and Belfast by artists such as 
Mr. William Conor, Miss Norah McGuiness, Mr. Boyd Morrison, Mr. 
Cecil Salkeld, Mr. Lawrence Bradshaw and one or two others. Mr. Paul 
Nash, Mr. Duncan Grant, Mr. Randolph Schwabe, Mr. McKnight Kauffer, 
Mr. Aubrey Hammond, Mr. Tom Heslewood and Mr. Herbert Norris (the 
latter having done a fine set for ‘“‘ The Lady of Belmont ” recently at the 
new ‘‘ Arts Theatre’) have all done good work at some of the London 
theatres ; when on rare occasions it has been decided to employ an artist, 
for a change! And this is practically all; except for the activities of the 
play-producing societies, a few provincial repertory theatres, and some work 
for charity matinees and amateur dramatic clubs. Alas ! 

It was when I found how comparatively little good work in decoration was 
to be seen in the larger London theatres that I had to hunt about for the 
artists who are doing designs for the theatre—those, I mean, who regard it 
as an art and not a business—and made the discovery that all but two or 
three are ‘‘ out of work ”’ as far as the theatre is concerned. Yet I believe 
there are about forty theatres in the London district and many hundreds in 
the whole country. In how many can be found scenery and costumes of 
any kind but the ordinary and commercial? ‘The answer is that we shall 
find them only in the theatres of the three or four men to whom I have 
already referred. Occasionally an opera company will do something good, 
and the play-producing societies, when they have funds, do much to encourage 
designers—though they cannot pay for their services ; and there is fine work 
being done in queer little fit-up theatres, in studios, garages, schoolrooms 
and gardens. But in all my researches in connection with this book I found 
only one stage-designer permanently attached to a theatre. 

It was when I had almost touched bottom in the unearthing of these 
iniquities that I wrote about them to Mr. Gordon Craig, and though I do 
not suppose that they were to him the shock that they are to myself 
it was my tale about the neglected designers that brought me the generous 
and characteristic response from Genoa ; the letter and article which should 
make the publication of this book a notable event. I urge all designers, 
and would-be designers, to read both with close attention; and I hope 
that they will not only think about his offer, which is also something of a 
challenge, but individually and collectively work on the lines he suggests. 
Mr. Cochran says in his article, ‘“ The Play and the Scene”: “ the art of 
the stage designer has tended of late years to become the spoilt child of that 
family of arts which make up the art of the theatre.” Well ! I know that 
designers are happy, if not spoilt, at the London Pavilion, at the Lyric 
Theatre, Hammersmith, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and one or 


ye 


two others, but I also know of dozens of able stage-designers who have 
been or would have been spoilt in another sense—the sense of starving 
to death—if they had relied on the theatre as a means of livelihood. 
Therefore I think it is true to say that the “‘ spoiling ”’ of the stage-designers 
is local to a few theatres and personal to a few lucky artists ; and the fact that 
the subject of stage decoration is much written about and illustrated in 
recent books and magazines does not mean that the theatre as a whole has 
begun to take this art seriously. 

Mr. Bernard Shaw has said . . . “ Art is kept alive, not by the established 
trade in it, but by the desperate efforts of art-hungry individuals to create 
and re-create it out of nothing for its own sake.”’ 

I think this is and has been true of every art in this country for about a 
century, except perhaps literature ; especially is it true of the stage-designer’s 
art. Nothing but sheer art-hunger could keep men and women month 
after month, year after year, drawing costumes and scenery for imaginary 
theatres ; filling their studios with all manner of projects, plans, cartoons 
and paintings—creating and re-creating them out of nothing, and for nothing 
but their own delight in the art for its own sake. 

The ‘“‘Arts Theatre of London ”’ is a fine title indeed! and at length we 
have the right to use it. Most great cities of the world have had their arts 
theatre these many years, but we, always slow-starters and bad-spenders, 
have only now at last built our own. ‘The name is inspiring, the aim should 
be high, for the possibilities are immense. The theatre itself is small; no 
matter! Its architecture is distinguished (being the work of Mr. Morley 
Horder). The art of the theatre in England has always needed a trial ground 
and, perhaps, a forcing house ; for a work of art should be tried and proved 
before it is thrust out into a commercial world which, too often, tinkers with 
ideas without having grasped their import. This theatre, if it is to earn 
the full right to its high-sounding title, should bring about a new spirit of 
harmony among all those arts that together make the art of the theatre. 
Most theatre managers believe and almost invariably act on the belief that 
the best man to design a scene or a costume is the craftsman who makes it. 
There is overwhelming evidence that this belief is wrong. It would be as 
sane to believe that a builder can design a building as well as an architect, 
and nobody but the tradesmen who sit on Borough Councils would believe 
anything so fundamentally silly. Why do we build so many atrociously bad 
buildings every year all over our unfortunate countryside ’—because penny- 
wise tradesmen will build without architects. Why do we fill our theatres 
month after month and year after year with tasteless, joyless and often 
anachronistic scenery and costumes ? Why ?—because theatre managers so 
rarely employ designers. Yet the art is being kept alive, it has never been 
more vigorously alive than now; I write with some bitterness because I 
have seen so much effort and splendid effort—not wasted, I will not say 
wasted, because the artist has his personal reward and pleasure in the doing, 
but lost, lost to the theatre, and lost to the people ; to the audiences, who 
would love it and would be clamouring for it if they knew just how they are 
being obstinately and persistently defrauded of an art they pay for but do 
not receive. 

England has now the finest school of theatre designers it has ever had, in 


3 


spite of the loss of the most brilliant—Claud Lovat Fraser ; and as I have 
not the slightest hesitation in stating, they are nearly all out of work, and 
England is, as usual, cutting a pretty poor figure in this branch of art. It 
is futile to tell the English people how mentally, morally, and spiritually 
dangerous it is at all times to neglect design in any of the arts ; because it 
is physically dangerous to neglect it in things mechanical, they treat their 
engineers always with respect. Perhaps some theatre managers think of 
scenery as a branch of mechanics; now I come to think of it, I am sure they 
do, and this would account for much that is wrong in their reign of error ; 
they—like a barber’s victim in Charles Keene’s drawing, who preferred his 
head scurfy !—prefer their scenery and costumes to be utterly common- 
place; not content with their debased personal taste they make a noisy 
parade of their conviction that the unfortunate public likes them that way. 
This type of theatre manager is a low brow, everyone is agreed about that, 
including himself! That is, one may say, a person lavishly endowed with 
the faculty that we call commonsense: his senses are common and his 
imagination stunted or absent; he has not yet awakened to the fact that 
the public, for about a decade, have been flocking to see well-designed 
shows, and shows which have fine colour. The immense success of the 
Russian Ballets (as long as they were Russian, and before they became 
Parisian), ‘“‘ The Beggar’s Opera,” “ Chauve Souris,” ‘ Sumurun,” “ St. 
Joan ” and other productions should be proof enough that the public taste 
is sound and that zt welcomes good decoration when it can get it. It was the 
glowing colour of the Russian Ballets, particularly those designed by Leon 
Bakst and danced by Nijinsky and also “‘Sumurun”’ (designed by Ernst Stern) 
which first interested the general public in the art of modern stage design 
as we understand it now; and to these foreign influences we are indebted 
for the removal of some of the barriers that until the appearance of these 
new influences had kept the form of costume and scene in the rut of 
Victorian naturalism. 

It is my conviction that the advent of these ballets awakened a certain interest 
in the public mind as to the quality and talents of native designers, and thus 
it was led to realize what had been clear to the thoughtful for years : some 
of the truths taught by Gordon Craig—‘‘ the most famous man of the 
theatre in Europe,” according to Mr. Bernard Shaw, for Gordon Craig is an 
Englishman of genius, and we should have been the first, not the last, country 
to recognize the fact. Ever since the public was made conscious that it had 
been and still is neglecting him, its great mouth has been frothing with 
excuses : more wordy than convincing, these excuses do nothing to mitigate 
the neglect of such a prophet; a neglect that is a smirch on the honour 
of our national theatre. The question of what should be done for the 
realization of Gordon Craig’s ideals irks the public conscience like a 
wound that will not heal. If this book does something to keep the wound 
open and painful, so much the better. 

The public—that old English public so useful to writers of forewords !— 
has, up to the present, only protested in a negative way about badly mounted 
plays: it grumbles about them if they are too obviously bad but it always 
has the same behaviour: it goes to a play if it likes it and it stays away if 
it does not. The dramatic critics, perhaps because their brains and ears 


+ 


have been developed at the expense of their eyes, prefer good design to bad, 
but they neglect to say so: they will praise quite generously a finely designed 
setting while they rarely if ever condemn the vulgar stupid scenery and 
costumes which debauch the taste of the public in more than two-thirds of 
our theatres. ‘The atrocities that are perpetuated in musical comedies year 
after year pass unrebuked. A little wholesome invective from the critics 
would soon have the effect of making the public articulate, and then the 
whole standard of decoration in the theatre would of necessity become 
enormously improved. ‘The critics stamp heavily and collectively on bad 
taste wherever they find it in the theatre, except when it occurs, as it so 
constantly does occur, in the decoration. I imagine the function of the 
dramatic critics is to search for art—in the play, in the actor, in the producer, 
in all that happens in the working side of the proscenium, and I deduce from 
their habits that critics are expected (by their editors) to say when they 
cannot discover any art ; certainly they generally do so in a most amusing 
and informative way—indeed the dramatic columns are about the best 
reading one finds in newspapers—but they fail the theatre incomprehensibly 
in this one respect, they do not condemn bad design. I submit that dis- 
cordant colour, worn-out old scenic formule and all sorts of pictorial 
anachronisms do not help a play, and more : that they degrade theatrical art 
as a whole ; also that good taste in mounting a play never detracts from the 
essential importance of the play, nor the essential work of the actors, and does, 
or should, materially assist both. ‘The enemy in the field is the manager, not 
of course the scenic artist : him we may respect, and he and his staff are as 
necessary to the designer as the orchestra to the conductor, the builders to the 
architect, the mechanics to the engineer. Anyone who has swung on a giddy 
little bridge (as I have) before a perfectly vast expanse of blank canvas in a paint 
room must realize how essential he is and that—except for the designer’s 
essential creative design—the scenic craftsman can do an amazing number of 
things better than the designer. In rare instances one man is both designer and 
scenic-craftsman : notable examples are Mr. Victor Hembrow, Mr. Oliver 
Bernard and M. Marc Henri. Butasa rule the unfortunate result of scenic- 
artists doing their own designing in the theatres—in most of them—anyone can 
see for himself. The conceiving of costumes and the making of costumes are 
also two separate arts : the kind of skill required to make a costume is widely 
separated from the flair and scholarship necessary to him who designs a 
costume. In spite of the fact that in every production of artistic importance 
for many years the scenes and costumes have been designed by the same 
artists, it is the custom in an ordinary theatre to have costumes made by one 
firm and the scenery by another, without a designer to see that these do not 
conflict. As it is, they nearly always do conflict—often to an excruciating 
extent. Perhaps because of this quite avoidable muddling a number of 
persons are just now clamouring for the suppression, ejection, elimination— 
or whatever way they like it put—of all painted decoration from our stages ; 
and the rebuilding of our theatres so that scenery shall no longer be 
necessary !_ However, as painted scenery has been in more or less continuous 
use since the year 458 B.C. (there seems to be a doubt as to whether it was 
/Eschylus or Sophocles who actually invented the art) it is doubtful and 
unlikely that a tradition so enduring will be lightly discarded ; and so the 


5 


problem for the English designer will not lie in any immediate change in 
the form of the actual theatre. Problems from this contingency, at least to 
me, seem remote: English theatres, hundreds of them, are sturdily built 
and likely to stand up for a very great number of years, and they have all 
been intended for plays to be acted in painted scenes in such a way that 
nothing will really work well in them but painted scenery, and as painting, 
assisted by light, is the most adaptable of media and can suggest any known 
form and any known colour, is there reason for discontent against the struc- 
ture of our theatres, that are the fruits—rather crystallized fruits | admit— 
of centuries of ingenuity and thought? Others do not see it like this, they 
yearn after the fourth dimension and state, untruthfully, that our stages 
cannot suggest adequately even the third. They have a violent urge to 
impose new and severe limitations (though they call it something else !) on 
our theatres. Here is an example :— 


‘“‘ The theatre is dead. 
We are not working for new decoration. 
We are not working for new literature. 
We are not working for new lighting systems. 
We are not working for new masks. 
We are not working for new stages. 
We are not working for new costumes. 
We are not working for new actors. 
We are not working for new theatres. 
We are working for the theatre that has survived the theatre. 
We are working for the sound body of a new society. 
And we have confidence in the strength of newer generations. 
They are aware of their problems. 
The theatre is dead (again !). 
We want to give it a splendid burial.” 


This was written by Herr Friedrich Kiesler, of Vienna (or was it Leningrad ?), 
as a Foreword to the catalogue of the International Theatre Exposition, New 
York, 1926. The reader will notice that Herr Kiesler is not a very con- 
structive fellow! His genius burns more brightly on the destructive side 
of theatrical life: in nine terrible lines he destroys the whole fabric of the 
existing international theatre ; his pen is indeed mightier than a bomb ! 

But in addition to this Foreword, Herr Kiesler wrote an article in the same 
catalogue, entitled ‘‘ Debacle of the Modern Theatre ” ; here is some of it :— 


‘The contemporary theatre calls for the vitality of life itself, a vitality 
which has the force and tempo of the age. For such energy the pro- 
scenium with its angles, its here-and-there, is not enough. Its breadth 
fills the entire stage ; it demands depth, freedom of movement, space 
in the truest sense of the word, it cannot get this on the picture stage, 
where the action and the scenery are designed for a frontal effect.” 
(Now we are coming to the real work!) ‘‘ The new spirit bursts the 
stage, resolving it into space to meet the demands of the action. It 
invents the space stage, which is not merely a priori space, but also 
appears as space.” 


In the United States they may be able to do these things! I don’t know. 
But I do know that in England we cannot afford to have our stages burst 
and resolved into space, and even if we could I feel distinctly doubtful as 
to whether our playwrights and actors would really wish for infinity as a 
setting. Optically we are not so richly gifted as the house-fly, which can 
see in all directions at once: out of the back of its head, and even perhaps 
through its hat for all I know! 
Our stages are designed for “ frontal effect ’’ because in the main we live 
life, see life, theatres and everything else as a “‘ frontal effect ;”’ indeed rarely 
do we inquire below the surface! Unless Herr Kiesler has wings or 
wheels attached to the stalls in his space-theatre (I make him a present of 
this idea) so that his audience through moving rapidly round the actors may 
be deluded into believing that they see the actors back to front and front to 
back as a single impression—unless Herr Kiesler has this done, I do not see 
how he will obtain anything really more satisfying than the modern painter, 
“ designing in solids,” can achieve in a normal theatre ; given enough chance. 
It is true that the artist must create both scene and costume, never failing 
to remind himself constantly that his work will be seen by an audience so 
arranged that no two members will see it from the same angle of vision, 
but it is inaccurate, if not actually foolish, to say that the stage picture is 
flat. Let us imagine, as a mental illustration, an audience and a stage with 
a charming dancer on it, the men in the gallery see the top of her head yet 
at the same instant the men in the stalls see the sole of her foot (which of 
course is not flat, but let that pass). ‘The point is that the experience of the 
audience is not one of flatness. Once more from the same catalogue I am 
able to quote, this time M. Adolf Loos, of Paris: ‘ Properly understood 
. . the theatre is a school for unborn intellect.”” M. Loos says himself 
that it is Herr Kiesler’s space stage that he has in mind, only he calls it a 
“circus,” and gives a fairly accurate description of the circus as the theatre 
of the future. From this we may deduce that our country was innocently 
in the very van of theatrical progress fifty years ago, for were not the 
elephants and piebald ponies of the “‘ Lords ”’ Sanger—George and John— 
even then drawing space-stages from village to village? As lately as a 
month ago, when I saw his rather boastful bills stuck on a rock in Shropshire, 
“Lord ” John was still re-erecting his “‘ School for unborn intellect.” 
Nothing delights me so much in Mr. Craig’s message ‘‘ To the English 
designers of sceneries and costumes ”’ as this passage: “‘ Never mind about 
inventing new stages, stick to the old one and learn its shape and uses. It 
is a good stage and it will do.’ Only the most unprecedented series of 
earthquakes could change the form of all the old theatres, so it is satisfactory 
to have the assurance from the best authority that we do well to stick to 
the old stage. When rude foreigners call our theatres “ Peep holes,” 
“‘ Picture stages,” ‘“‘ Peep shows with assembly rooms appended,” and our 
audiences ‘‘ A parquet of mummies in evening dress,” “‘ décolleté jellies ” 
(can this possibly be Herr Kiesler’s ungallant allusion to the ladies !), 
‘‘ antiquated youths,” is it not time to form ourselves into a “ Society for 
the Prevention of—let us say—Meddling Highbrows.”’ 
Mr. Terence Gray, writing on stage lighting, makes the assertion that “‘ Of 
all the factors that have emerged in the exploration of the artistic possibilities 


7 


of play-production, the most potent, the most vital, is that of light. It has 
been maintained that a play could be performed adequately with the aid of 
light only, but at least it can certainly be said that not less than one-third 
of the power and expression which can be got out of a play can be obtained 
only by an inspired use of this medium.” 

Of course light is a potent and vital factor in the theatre and, if we value 
colour, the problem is simply this: can projected coloured-light produce a 
colour effect in any way comparable in variety, richness and subtlety to a 
colour effect obtained by normal light reflected in a normal way to the eye 
by self-coloured objects? The answer to the problem is simple too: No, 
it cannot, because the form of coloured light cannot at our present state of 
knowledge be controlled ; but only its quantity and direction. Supposing 
a theatre to be equipped with a number of lighting units each capable of 
projecting a beam of coloured light, supposing too that each coloured light 
be a beautiful and even subtle colour (though this it rarely is in practice), 
what then? Can the form of this light be controlled ? Will not the colours 
smudge and overlap, and the beams light anything and everything that lies 
in their path? The colour will splash over, without register or reason, the 
face of the leading lady, a portion of background, a bit of the stage... 
anything—indiscriminately. If the whole stage is illuminated with a single 
colour, however beautiful, what do we achieve? A monochrome, which, 
unless it is quickly replaced by another colour, becomes as tiresome as those 
pieces of dyed film—dyed blue or orange—which mar otherwise good 
photographs on the Kinematograph screens. What form of projected light 
could have obtained the splendid glowing harmony of Mr. Charles Rickett’s 
painted curtains in the Earl of Warwick’s tent. 

Painting, dyeing materials, fabrics, faces, properties or what not is the only 
method that we know at present of obtaining a controlled colour scheme of 
any complexity and subtlety. 

Lighting is not yet an art, it is a science, and its only function in the theatre 
as yet is to make the movement, form and colour—created by actor, producer 
and designer—visible. 

Some five or six years ago Major Adrian Klein invented a projecting lantern 
which was capable of throwing all the colours of the visible spectrum on the 
stage. I have already written at some length about this.” Unfortunately 
the theatre which acquired this really wonderful instrument has, as far as 
I am aware, never made use of it. Major Klein achieved a control of coloured 
light that was far in advance of anything that had been done before. He 
is still working out his problems of light and colour, and as he is not onl 
a scientist but a painter and musician, his recent book, ‘“‘ Colour Music,” 
has a bearing on stage problems. 

The Greeks went to their theatres at dawn and we go to our theatres at 
dusk but perhaps one of the fundamental reasons why we go so gladly to 
the theatre when, by all natural laws we should be going to our beds, is, 
that by doing so we gain an extension of life ; for when the sun and 
daylight have gone then all colour is gone too. The brightest moon can 
show us no colour. It is the coldness of the films that is the opportunity of 


1“ St. Joan,” by G. B. Shaw, at the Regent Theatre. 
2 English Review, February, 1923. 


the theatre, and probably largely the cause of the growing emotional reaction 
to colour that is now rampant in all classes of the community. In Belgravia 
we may find satisfaction in the subtle colour suggestions of Persian Minia- 
tures or faded prints ; in Hoxton we may find it in the stupid vulgarities of 
brewer’s posters, though I cling to the hope that these are only the brewer’s 
expression of his personal beastliness, and that we, in Hoxton, prefer the 
fierce colours of orange barrows lit by naphtha flares. Anyway, the world 
in general loves colour, especially at night, and no device of man has pro- 
duced colour with more fascination than when it is harnessed to the wit, 
the dancing and the drama of the theatre. 


No attempt has been made in this book to give a general survey of the 
vigorous school of theatre designers now working in the American theatre. 
Some reproductions of the work of American artists who have won inter- 
national fame for their distinguished scenic designs, have been included and 
are among the most interesting illustrations. It is hoped on another occasion 
to deal more justly with a subject that grows yearly in extent and interest. 
Mr. Robert Edmond Jones, whose beautiful setting for ““ Hamlet ’’ was seen 
in London recently, has many enthusiastic admirers of his work in this 
country. He has that rarely found gift : a sense of dramatic fitness. When 
studying a number of his designs I feel that his inspiration—and no less a 
word will do—is derived directly, in the most real sense, through the plays 
he decorates, and not through any other source. He must be ranked as one 
of the most interesting figures in American art, a designer of whom Europe 
may well be jealous. And one who seems unhampered by the problem that 
arises from profound dissatisfaction with the theatre as we know and have 
known it. He, Mr. Wenger and Mr. Urban, are all men who achieve fine 
things in the theatre as it still is. 

Mr. Norman-Bel Geddes is an artist of a different order: his designs for 
“The Divine Comedy ”’ reveal a mind I doubt can continue to work con- 
tentedly in the world of the theatre as it at present exists everywhere in 
America and Europe: a world of more or less rigid convention and ancient 
tradition. In the words of Professor Reinhardt : ‘‘ Geddes is a native of this 
world. He knows that three things are necessary to the living theatre : 
actors, collaborators, onlookers. With voluntary humility he bows before 
this trinity. Without losing himself he has the most perfect understanding, 
the most ardent devotion, the most sensitive adaptability to the work of 
others. He transforms and reveals himself simultaneously. He loves his 
neighbour in art as himself. 
Blessed by the sun and rain he will mature as the strongest man in the 
theatre of this time.” 


And now I gladly abandon my pen to conclude here with the three deft, 
weighty and valuable contributions :—The message “ To the English De- 
signers of Sceneries and Costumes,” from Mr. Gordon Craig ; the letter to 
myself from Mr. Nigel Playfair; and ‘“‘ The Play and The Scene,” by 
Mr. Charles B. Cochran. 


TO THE ENGLISH DESIGNERS OF SCENERIES AND 
COSTUMES 
BY E. GORDON CRAIG 


Touching this matter of Design in the Theatre. As design is part and parcel 
of the whole affair, part of the Play, the Drama, it stands to reason that the 
very best person to make the Designs is the man who makes the Play, if 
he can. 

Shakespeare we are told drew his designs in words, without thought of the 
kind of spectators who would be coming into power in 1900, spectators who 
want spectacle and who, according to some people, boss and spoil all things ; 
he wrote in words which were and are “ above their heads ”’ and so it follows 
as the day the night the Public fails to have a use for Shakespeare. 

If he came in person to the world again, this Public—about 200,000 persons 
—would meet him at the station, mob him, and attempt to break off a bit 
of his genius as a souvenir. 

How long will London tolerate this Public and its Opinion—that is what 
the other Publics are asking. 

Shakespeare being a high-brow, an out-and-out high-brow, painted his 
sceneries in words and with words. The good man wanted to do it all,* 
to write the play, paint the scene, act the parts, and produce it, light it, and 
be his own audience. ‘This he succeeded in doing, and must have enjoyed 
himself immensely. If you read a play of his, you see him at work doing 
everything. 

So that, after all, the high-browed gentlemen who tell you (I am addressing 
the designers) that you need not trouble to paint and build up any actual 
castle for ‘‘ Macbeth ”’ or any heath for “‘ King Lear ” are quite correct. 
The others, the low-browed theatrical blokes (I use the word bloke advisedly), 
who tell you, you are jolly well not going to mess up their very clean stage 
with your pots of paints, and put their nerves on edge with your fanciful 
notions, are also quite right, as you have possibly noticed, for I ask you 
when were you Jast employed to paint scenes and design notions in a Theatre ? 
You can hardly remember it was so long ago. 

You must have observed that the high-brows and the low-brows are all 
united against you, and do not intend to allow you to get a footing on our 
English Stage. And our English Stage is what matters to us Englishmen. 
" It is of far less importance to us in England what they are doing in America, 
Germany, Russia, France, Holland, Italy and Spain, but for all that in 
passing I may be allowed to linger for a moment to tell you, that, in almost 
every other land except our own, the designer is held to be part and parcel 


* Artists, clever and stupid alike, have often wanted to do this. Bernini the architect seems to 
have gone further than anyone else, for he wrote the play, built the theatre, painted the scenes, 
composed the music, invented the machines and cut the statues, and so ran the risk of dis- 
pleasing many. 


10 


of the theatre and his designs and notions greatly respected and he himself 
given a hearty welcome by the managers and stage directors.t 

I was not, nor am I to-day, entirely in favour of the stage becoming the 
playground of every designer or painter. I belong to a theatrical family, if 
you will remember it ; so I am prejudiced (I hope that doesn’t mean narrow 
to you) in favour of my own workshop remaining the sole property of those 
who give their lives to the stage, and I always shall be prejudiced that way. 
But many of the men of your calling, have been generous to me, oddly 
enough sometimes more generous than those of the theatre, and so | have 
for some years been thinking of a way in which I might do something in 
return for you. And I have found something rather good for you. 

It will give your talents full scope, you will be masters of your platform or 
stage or whatever you like to call it. You will enrage the more pompous 
of the Dramatic Critics for quite a few years, but you will fill your play- 
house, and you will at last be able to pay your bills. You will do without 
playwrights and actors, those two who have so long said and shown that 
they could do without you. 

But it will mean hard work, and it will mean sticking to it until you succeed, 
and it will mean giving up everything else to do it. 

Now the question I want answered is are you ready to do that? I ask this 
publicly, because I have no doubts in my own head as to your immense 
abilities, but perhaps I rather doubt your capacity for sticking to a thing 
and making it succeed in spite of private and public criticisms. You have 
to prove me wrong here. 

What you ought to do to begin with, is to get together and form yourselves 
into a properly organized body, independent of all impresarios or business 
men and naturally there should be no theatre people in it. (They don’t 
want you, good, then you don’t want them, all’s well: no bad feeling: 
simply go your own way. Perhaps later on they may want you, and you 
may want them ; if so that would be one very good result of this new move 
of yours.) 

As you are forming yourselves into a group I suggest you get a book of the 
rules of the Fascist Party, and without slavishly copying them in all their 
ways, copy them in their rules which seem to you practical to your idea 
and helpful to yourselves, especially those dealing in discipline. 
Before the Fascisti took Rome, they gave some considerable time to putting 
themselves in order ; now to do that you want to know what it is you are 
going to do after you are in order, and (if you care about it) I will tell you 
the day I see you organized . . . and if you will take the trouble to enquire 
into the ideas I have given to the theatres of other lands you will find that 
I have not deceived them, my ideas have positively appeared in due time, 
have been tried, and have proved valuable. 

But this time I’m not going to publish my idea broadcast. I have it and 
intend to hold it for you, the British Designers who can’t get a footing in 
+ This summer London has been flooded with propaganda from the city of Munich, telling of 
its Festivals in its ‘‘ Bavarian State Theatres” from July 26 to August. These have been 
advertised by a leaflet which you have seen in every copy of the “‘ Studio” and elsewhere. In 
every leaflet, was the name of each piece, author, stage director, and stage Designer. ‘The names 


of the stage designers are Adolf Leunebach, Leo Pasetti, Emil Prectorius, Josef Hillerbrand, 
Julius Diez and Friedrich Heubuer. 


i 


the British Theatre, and I don’t intend to pass it along free to Germans, 
Americans, or Russians, who would bring it out in advance of you for a 
certainty. So you must hurry up. 

It’s an idea which will not empty the other theatres, but will assuredly fill 
yours when you have it, and that will only be when you have organized 
yourselves into a practical hard-headed group of workers ready to carry out 
something difficult but made particularly for you and for no one else. 

The first thing you will have to do is to learn the construction of the modern 
stage. At present you seem to be rather ignorant of this. Never mind 
about inventing new stages, stick to the old one and learn its shape and its 
uses. It’s a good stage and it will do. Avoid all innovating as you study ; 
put a curb on your imaginations or fancies and settle down, one and all, to 
master the comparative sizes, shapes, proportions, fittings and what are 
called practical possibilities of the modern stage ; its floor, its under stages, 
flies, upperfloors, and side galleries, scene docks, and every part and corner 
of all the stages you can possibly come to know about. After this turn to 
the fittings, electrical and hydraulic hand worked and every other kind of 
machine elaborate or simple which is in use in the modern theatre and by 
which the scenes are manipulated. Then occupy yourselves entirely with 
the lighting plant and all its machines, beginning with a single electric lamp 
and working up until you have mastered the switchboard. Then learn the 
technique of costume; how to design costumes you may already know ; 
learn how to cut them, to make them, to wear them. Learn the whole 
thing, the whole technical theatre. 

All this is where the need for organization comes in. 

If you are a body of 20, or 80, separate yourselves into three groups, one 
scenic, one lighting, one costume. And each group choose a leader and 
follow him. He will be learning with you as he teaches you, but choose 
the man who you think the most practical man of your especial group to 
push you all along quickly but without over haste and bring you all to the 
conclusion of your studies. And they are to be practical studies and not 
mere book work. 

The scenic group will have to build a small model stage ; one of your studios 
will have to hold it, it will probably fill a good half of the room. As your 
studies will be made with this model stage, you can test on it all that your 
leader speaks to you about and as he is speaking. 3 

The smallest thing in your stage is probably a brace ;* the largest is a 
revolving stage. 

Both of these can be made and tested, and you need not suppose you have 
to make all of them full size. As with these two parts of the whole machine, 
_ so with the other parts. ‘There are some hundreds. 

Take them one by one, make them when you can (ome brace is enough, you 
don’t want to make 50, so is one roller for one roll curtain, and so on). 
‘What for ?”’ you are possibly already asking, and it answers itself. “ So 
as to know the place you are to work in”: for how do you suppose you'll 
ever get a footing on any stage let alone on mine, if you are unfamiliar with 
the place you are to work in and ignorant of its limitations and possibilities. 
The knowledge you have of a modern stage is, I expect, rather superficial ; 
* A thing to prop up a small piece of scenery 


12 


and the value of every new design you make only increases as you come to 
know the stages better and better. So that if you suppose you can dispense 
with this knowledge you start handicapped. Rid yourself of that useless 
idea and you'll find the work much easier and those you come in time to 
work with more agreeable. 

And when you are ready i’ll give you the idea. 


13 


LETTER FROM NIGEL PLAYFAIR 


Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. 
DEAR SHERINGHAM, 


I am very glad to hear that you are writing about the Art of Design in 
the English Theatre, for no one has greater qualifications both in taste and 
experience than yourself. I am glad to feel that in undertaking this work 
you will use the word ‘‘ Design ” and not “ Decor,” a nasty foreign word 
which suggests that the Art, as practised by yourself and Wilkinson and 
Ricketts, is controlled and inspired by Continental influence. 

As you know very well, it is nothing of the kind—it owes very little to that 
influence. On the contrary, surprised as English people may be to learn it, 
and indifferent as I fear most of them may be, the whole of the modern 
movement in design in the modern theatre is due in the first place to English 
activity. 

It is only our notorious lack of organization—a vice which unfortunately 1s 
too often boasted of as if it were a merit—that has retarded its development 
and has allowed our rivals to outstrip us everywhere in quantity if not in 
quality. 

It is an art—if only our Managers would be persuaded to realize it—in 
which English Artists are and have been for a long time supreme. 

It is an art which is of the utmost importance to the well-being of our theatre 
—since—for most of us at any rate—the opportunity of deceiving the public 
with empty ornament is at an end. That is at any rate one advantage which 
tempers the many disasters which our empty granaries provide for us ! 

It is such a book as yours which will in time lead the law-givers of the 
Drama to demand more and more the presence of the Artist in the theatre 
and at last bring recognition and esteem to those who have gone finely 
about their tasks in the face of discouragement and neglect. 

Good luck to you— 


Yours sincerely, 


NIGEL PLAYFAIR. 


14 


THE PLAY AND THE SCENE 
BY CHARLES B. COCHRAN 


The art of the stage designer has tended of late years to become the spoilt 
child of that family of arts which make up the art of the theatre. Far more 
attention has been lavished both by the experts and the laity upon the 
decorative aspects of theatre-craft than upon any other of the contributory 
arts and crafts of the stage. We must not be deceived by this, however, 
into giving to the scene the prime place of importance in the theatre, for, 
important as scene is, it must be remembered that the primary arts of the 
theatre are those of player and playwright. I stress this point at the outset 
because, keen as I am on seeing the finest pictorial and decorative talents 
of our time being made contributory, if not tributary, to the contemporary 
stage, and much as I have worked personally to bring about this consum- 
mation, I feel very definitely that the art of the decorator must always be 
ancillary to the intention of the author—or in the case of opera, the composer 
—and must extend, and never threaten to submerge, the talent and per- 
sonality of the individual actor. 

I urge this by way of warning because of the recent notable insistence in 
exhibitions of theatrical art, in the better-class journals which devote con- 
siderable space to the theatre, and in other quarters, on the importance of 
setting and costume and of the visual side of mzse-en-scéne, and the relative 
neglect of those other factors which not only provide a considerable portion 
of the illusion of the stage but which also need to be taken into account by 
every theatrical designer. For it must be remembered that whereas a great 
picture or a great piece of sculpture must essentially be conceived in terms 
of, perhaps momentary, rest, every good stage design must be conceived in 
terms of the essential dramatic movement. ‘The one, in a word, is static, 
the other dynamic. So that if our stage artist provides a scene which is 
fundamentally a single stated entity, he endangers the whole dramatic 
concept which it should be his function to assist in making plain to the 
beholder. 

Enormous strides have been made, particularly during the present century, 
in the sphere of theatrical decoration. With the supersession of the con- 
ventionalized stage (used in various forms in the classical theatre of antiquity 
and in our own Elizabethan and Restoration theatres), it may be said that 
the theatrical decorator first makes his bow to the public, taking the place 
formerly held by the architect. The difficulty of achieving naturalism on 
the stages of former generations with their simple equipment of wings and 
backcloths and with their primitive lighting apparatus, added to the fact 
that stage managers of those earlier days had little pictorial imagination or 
training, doubtless led to the development of the highly ornate and crudely 
colourful settings which were still familiar accompaniments of the melo- 
dramas and musical shows of my own youth. 

The reform towards naturalism which is generally associated with the name 
of Tom Robertson inevitably paved the way for reforms in scene and the 
presentation of more true-seeming settings for the newly-born naturalistic 
play and naturalistic acting. Meanwhile spectacular decoration was evolving 


15 


by way of the old-time pantomime transformation and the elaborate scenic 
effects of, for instance, Drury Lane melodramas, towards that visual enchant- 
ment which was to find its highest achievement in the works of such masters 
as Leon Bakst, Derain, Picasso, which have been familiarized to the British 
public by way of the Russian Ballet, by the presentation of “ Sumurun,” 
and which I have sought to perpetuate in various spectacular revues, In 
Dulac’s settings for “ Cyrano de Bergerac,” and in other of my more 
picturesque productions. 

Bald realism soon found its Waterloo in the decorative, just as it did in the 
literary fields of drama. The stage must always be the house of make- 
believe—if it would make us believe in the immensities. Just as the dramatist 
selects the most vital moments of the career of his protagonists, and just 
as the actor heightens or broadens his effects to produce the illusion of 
true-seeming, so the theatrical decorator who would convince us of the 
actuality of the simplest cottage interior or the barest landscape must 
heighten and strengthen the suggestions of nature rather than merely 
portray Nature’s actualities. 

In this department of what one may describe as the neo-realism of dramatic 
decoration the laurels must certainly go, so far as creative innovation is 
concerned, to the Russian and American schools. Robert Edmond Jones’ 
scenes for ‘‘ Anna Christie,’ which I presented at the Strand some years 
back, represent to my mind the high-water mark in this genre so far as the 
London stage is concerned. 

While musical comedy, revue, ballet, and spectacular drama give oppor- 
tunities for the lavishly-picturesque, just as domestic comedy and natu- 
ralistic drama provide a vehicle for neo-realistic settings, Shakespearean and 
classic drama generally—and in this context I would not exclude a number 
of modern plays—lend themselves to more abstract scenic treatment. ‘The 
greatest advances in this direction have been made possible largely owing 
to the magnificent pioneer work of Gordon Craig, whose remarkable and 
entirely original conceptions have served more than those of any other 
designer to widen the boundaries of the theatre of imagination. I am 
proud to recognise that a man of our own race should have had this world- 
wide influence on the theatre of our time, and that his theory and practice 
should have influenced so profoundly the whole province of theatrical 
presentation throughout the whole world. This vast influence of Gordon 
Craig’s upon his contemporaries, and his own unique achievements, are 
evidence for my own contention that the designer who is also a practical 
man of the theatre is destined to produce the most significant and beneficial 
results. The art of the theatre must always be a synthesis of all those arts 
which go to its constitution. It is not merely acting, or play-making, or 
draughtsmanship and colour, or lighting, or production. It is all these 
combined with music, choreography, and what-not, to produce showman- 
like illusion. And the decorator who would most completely express 
himself in terms of theatre must subject himself to the requirements and 
realize the contingent arts and techniques which contribute to complete 
theatrical illusion. 


16 


CONTINENTAL DESIGNERS IN THE THEATRE 
BY JAMES LAVER 


T was sometime in the middle of the seventeenth century that the 
conscious intelligence first got out of hand, and inaugurated that 
tyranny of pure rationalism which is only now beginning to break 
down. The life of man ceased to be a whole; to see life steadily 
was to see it in fragments, and each human activity became 
specialised, and ultimately sterilised ; carried to its separate logical 
conclusion, and finally demonstrated to be pointless. From this disaster of 
the human spirit, the drama was one of the chief sufferers. What had been 
born once in the festival of Dionysos, and re-born in the first Mass ; what 
had been the common enthusiasm of a people, and the epitome of an epoch, 
became a department of literature. The drama was no longer one and 
indivisible ; it was words—and the rest ; and the words had almost crowded 
everything else out of existence. 
Shakespeare had supplied his stage’s lack of illusion by lyrical description. 
““ How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon that bank,’”’ makes the services of 
the lime-light man superfluous ; but in such a writer as Racine the words 
have absorbed the gestures too, so that almost nothing is gained by seeing 
Racine on the stage, although it may still be worth while to hear him spoken. 
Shakespeare’s scenes may have been but labels—‘‘ Olivia’s Orchard,”’ 
““Sea-coast of Bohemia,’ and the rest—but they relied firmly on the 
imagination of the audience. Racine’s lieu commun endowed his characters 
with an almost mathematical isolation. ‘The result was exquisitely subtle, 
but had little to do with the drama, and still less with scene-painting. 
But the branches which literature had lopped from the dramatic stem, had 
found new roots, and begun to blossom by themselves. ‘The Court ballet 
transformed itself into opera, and began to employ all the devices of music, 
dance and spectacle, of which tragedy had divested itself almost completely. 
It is opera that is the mother of scene-painting, and the latter bears marks 
of its origin up to the very commencement of the modern re-action. The 
perspective back-cloth itself was devised for some princely patron, someone 
who sat always in what was later the middle of the stalls. It could never 
have been very satisfactory seen from the gallery ; perhaps from only one 
seat in the house was it ever wholly convincing. ‘The misfortune was that 
drama, when it felt the need of painted scenery, took over en bloc all the 
conventional absurdities of the operatic stage, retreated (not all at once, it 


§ As footnotes are precluded by the scope of this rapid survey, it has been thought simpler 
merely to include a list of books consulted—and to which every acknowledgment is hereby made 
—in the bibliography of selected works. It is impossible in the space at disposal to do more 
than indicate the general tendencies of scenic design on the Continent. Any full account of 
the theatrical history of the last twenty years would be incomplete without some mention of the 
work of a score of directors and scenic artists here excluded : Pitoéff and Gaston Baty, Picabia 
and Jean-Victor Hugo in France, Cesar Klein, Sievert, Poelzig, Strohbach and a host of others 
in Germany, Griinewald in Sweden, Prampolini, Cosomati and Bragaglia in Italy, Drabik 
in Poland, Cingria and Vincent Vincent in Switzerland, and Zagorodnjnk in Yugo-Slavia. 
For the account of Martini’s ‘‘ Tetiteatro,’”’ or ‘‘ Theatre of Thetis,’ I am indebted to an 
article by the Polish critic Alexander Koltovski, translated by H. C. Stevens. 


17 


is true) behind the proscenium arch, and forgot that it had ever moved in 
rhythm round the orchestra of a Greek theatre, or declaimed the language 
of Shakespeare from a bare platform in the yard of an inn. 

Even costume clung to operatic (that is Court) convention, and tragic heroes 
played out their destiny in something resembling a jewelled ballet shirt. 
In the eighteenth century, to strive for realism was perhaps the only possible 
way of reforming the stage ; and innovators like Kemble and Talma deserve 
all credit for their share in a very necessary process. Later, even the minutely 
historical accuracy of the younger Kean had its experimental value, although 
the whole cargo of archaeology had to be flung overboard before the drama 
could find itself again. Realism was a necessary phase from which much was 
learned of value to the theatre; and there seems little doubt that certain 
realistic plays can only be played realistically. But the latter half of the 
nineteenth century, having started on the track of realism, seemed not to know 
that any other kind of play existed. And Ibsen, daring symbolist, and poet 
misunderstood, seemed the most realistic playwright of all. 

It was in 1887 that Antoine founded the Théatre-Libre, in order, as he and 
his supporters firmly believed, to apply the principles of stage naturalism in 
all their completeness. Instead, he did something quite different, and made 
a discovery of the first importance for the future of the theatre—that scenery 
can be made to re-inforce the mood of the play, that stage properties can 
themselves act, and that the art of the human actor is not all speech and 
gesture, but leaves room for silence and immobility. Antoine himself seems 
hardly to have realised the force of some of his mises-en-scéne—indeed his 
passion for real meat, real fountains, and the rest, seems in direct contra- 
diction to his true accomplishment. Unfortunately, also, his répertoire was 
singularly limited, full of thesis plays of the Brieux and de Curel type, which 
hardly lent themselves to novelty of staging. 

The reaction came from the group of young writers and artists known as the 
Symbolistes, who, led by Paul Fort, attacked the Théatre-Libre for its search 
of the exact, and for giving no help to writers of fantasy and imagination. 
Fort founded the Théatre Mixte, which, after two performances, became 
the Théatre d’Art, and he enunciated in his manifestoes many of the principles 
which have since become the commonplaces of the modernist school. 
Scenery was to be evocative rather than descriptive ; in fact (as M. Moussinac 
justly claims, in his book on theatrical decoration) all the principles which 
the Russians have since worked out, and which the Germans have applied, 
sometimes crudely, but with power and knowledge, had already been 
advocated by Fort and his friends ; simplification of decoration, the choice, 
for each scene, of the plastic elements necessary to create its appropriate 
atmosphere ; stylisation, complete harmony between scenery and costumes, 
and the abandonment of the perspective back cloth. Among the painters 
who joined in the battle against naturalism, and painted decorations for the 
ThéAtre d’Art were Vuillard, Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Odilon Redon and 
K. X. Roussel. 

In 1892 the Théatre d’Art became the Théatre de lOeuvre, Lugné-Poé 
collaborating with Camille Mauclair and Edouard Vuillard to present Pelleas 
et Melisande at the Bouffes-Parisiens. Stanislavsky was present at this 
performance, and afterwards admitted how much he owed to the decoration 


18 


by Vogler, and to all the experimental work which was being carried out in 
Paris towards the end of the last century. 

Stanislavsky himself, shortly afterwards, returned to Russia, and in 1897 
had that famous all-night conversation with Nemirovich-Danchenko which 
resulted in the formation of the Art Theatre of Moscow. Their object was 
the reform of the Russian stage, but they began at first by proclaiming the 
gospel of naturalism according to Antoine, and in striving to emulate the 
realistic effects of the Meiningers, the celebrated German company under 
Cronegk, which had visited Moscow only a few years before. In fact, 
naturalism was pushed to an extreme, an attempt being made to reproduce 
actual conditions of life, with all its accumulated detail, and in particular 
its merging of the principal characters of a drama in the mass of the 
participants. It was the opposite of the “ star ’’ system which was aimed at, 
and much more trouble was taken with the rehearsing of crowds than had ever 
happened before in any theatre. The “‘ super” ceased to exist, and ensemble 
acting was raised to a level which has perhaps never been reached by any 
other company of actors. 

But the very perfection of their technique caused the members of the Theatre 
to evolve a kind of symbolic rhythm which was very far from being the mere 
surface realism they had striven for at first. Stanislavsky, too, passed from 
Brieux to Maeterlinck, and from Gorky to Tchehov, and with Tchehov 
realism is itself symbolic. In such a play as “‘ The Sea-Gull ” the methods 
of the Art Theatre flowered, and were justified ; and it is difficult to see by 
what other method Tchehov’s plays could be made even intelligible. The 
reactions which Stanislavsky’s system provoked will be returned to later ; 
but first something must be said of that development or offshoot of the Russian 
theatre which is most familiar of all to the European public—the Russian 
Ballet. 

The symbolic use of colour and line which Stanislavsky had seen practised in 
Paris, the nature of his répertoire made it difficult for him to imitate and 
develop in Moscow. Maeterlinck’s ‘ Blue Bird’ was an exception, and 
served perhaps as a point of departure for other workers in the same field. 
The Russian Ballet undoubtedly owed something to the experiments of its 
forerunners, but its astonishing success was due principally to the genius 
of one man, Serge Diaghilev. The unfortunate Wronbel had _ inspired 
a group of young Petrograd painters to attempt the complete transformation 
of the whole art of scenic design. Diaghilev, with his gift for organisation, 
collected them under the banner of his review, Mir Iskousstva, or The World 
of Art. ‘The members of this group, of which the most famous were Bakst 
and Benois, practised a kind of mannered archaism, which, whatever its 
demerits as an art formula, lent itself very appropriately to the decoration 
of ballet. 

In opposition to these Petrograd painters there was also a Moscow group, 
more in touch with such Parisian movements as Cubism ; and these artists 
too were enlisted in Diaghilev’s service. The most famous names were 
Larionov, Gontcharova and Barthe, and it is in succession to their work that 
it seemed natural and logical to Diaghilev to call in the services of French 
painters like Picasso and Derain. 

Both the Petrograd and the Moscow artists were essentially scene-painters. 


19 


To them stage decoration meant a painted cloth, and costumes to match ; 
and although their triumphs were many, they do not belong to the main trend 
of the art of the theatre, as it has become apparent during the last few years. 
Bakst was the gorgeous sunset of scene-painting. In his day he was hailed 
as an innovator ; but he was not the beginning of anything. He was the end 
of a three-hundred years’ process, the culmination of the theatre of the 
Bibienas, of de Loutherbourg, and Clarkson Stanfield. ‘The Bakst tradition 
was most suitable for ballet, in particular for oriental or voluptuous ballet ; 
there was difficulty in applying it to more solemn themes, or to the form of 
legitimate drama. Even in the Diaghilev ballet itself, it has been superseded 
by the modified “‘ Constructivism ” of such a décor as that of ‘‘ The Cat ” in 
the 1927 season in London. Bakst’s real influence was in theminor decorative 
arts ; and the colour of curtains and cushions, and the covers of chairs, are 
still bright with the yellows and vermilions which he splashed about the 
Sultan’s harem in ‘‘ Scheherazade.” 

“The Cat” dispelled the doubt which had been forming in some minds, 
that Diaghilev, in spite of his flair, was at last beginning to fall behind the 
times. It showed that he had other ideas of revivifying the ballet, besides 
the calling-in of an eminent easel-painter to design a back-cloth. But from 
participating in the forward movement towards a new theatre, the ballet is, 
almost by its very nature, excluded. It is too firmly in the operatic tradition, 
too obviously the child of the Court. In itself it can be enchanting, but it 
cannot lead us back to the theatre as a unity, for it is itself a fragment of a 
fragment. 

To rediscover the central impulse in the modern movement it is necessary 
to go back to Appia. It was in 1899 that Adolphe Appia published his 
monumental work on the reform of staging, Die Musik und die Inscenterung. 
Some years before he had issued a smaller work, dealing with Wagner's 
operas, and it was the unsatisfactoriness of the scenery at Bayreuth which 
originally induced him to take up the subject. 

Appia began, very properly, with the actor, and insisted that scenic illusion 
consisted of his living presence on the boards of the theatre. When it was 
desired to represent a forest, as in the second act of Siegfried, it was not 
necessary to give the spectator the illusion of a forest, but of a man in the 
atmosphere of a forest. The spectator should be encouraged to concentrate 
his attention upon the actors, and not wilfully distracted by over-elaborate 
branches and over-ingenious leaves, attached to strips of netting hung from 
the flies. The scene-painter can do much with a skilful back cloth, he can 
do something with cut-out wings, he can do nothing with the ground on 
which the actors move. With painted scenery there must always be a 
contrast between the plasticity of the actor and the flatness of his surroundings. 
If perspective is attempted, the incongruity becomes plainer still, especially 
if the stage is seen from the side or from the gallery, and the only way to restore 
a partial harmony is to make the actor look as flat as possible by flooding the 
stage with light, and completely destroying all natural shadows. 

Appia, therefore, laid down that the two essentials of good décor were, first, 
lighting which would emphasise, instead of destroying, the three dimensions 
of the human form, and secondly, a plastic scene which would give the actor’s 
attitudes and movements all their value. It was to lighting that Appia 


20 


chiefly looked to transform the conventional mise-en-scéne, and it is by his 
feeling of the importance of the “ sculptural ”’ stage that he has most strongly 
influenced his disciples and followers. He enforced his arguments by apply- 
ing them to the problem of Wagnerian décor, and showed that there was some 
hope of realising the unity of spectacle, of which Wagner himself had only 
dreamed. 

What made Appia’s ideas practicable was the invention of electric lighting ; 
although it was the introduction of gas which first made it possible to use light 
not only for illumination but for effect. Oil footlights could not be controlled, 
their intensity could not be varied at will during a performance ; and in 
Garrick’s time, at least, there was the constant nuisance of snuffing. The 
problem was enormously simplified by being able to substitute a wire for a 
tube, but the almost infinite possibilities of electricity were not at first realised. 
One of the main tasks which occupied the early workers in this field was the 
problem of finding some convincing substitute for real daylight. Certainly 
footlights and borders could not give it. The illumination derived from 
them was patchy ; and the combination of light from above with light from 
below deprived the stage picture of all reasonable shadows. Worse still, 
it minimised the play of the actor’s features ; in indoor scenes it over- 
emphasised the walls, and over-illuminated the ceiling. 

It was to remedy some of these defects that the Fortuny system was worked 
out in Germany at the beginning of the century. The essence of his system 
was the reflection of light from bands of coloured silk, and its diffusion thence 
on to the sky-dome or cyclorama which occupied the back of the stage. The 
result was more like daylight than anything that had been accomplished before, 
but the original Fortuny system, on account of its waste of current and of the 
rapid deterioration of the bands of silk, has been generally abandoned or 
modified. 

The sky-dome, however, has remained, and is one of the most potent devices 
for attaining complete scenic illusion. Fortuny proposed a dome of silk 
which shut up, and could be transported from one place-to another. Its 
fragility and its tendency to crease have led to its being replaced in Germany 
and America by the sky-dome of plaster, which, no longer semi-circular (for 
that blocks the side entrances to the stage) takes the form of a flattened shell, 
bending inwards sharply at the top and at the sides. Whitewashed plaster 
makes an admirable surface for light to play upon, and the effect seen from the 
front of the stage is of infinite distance, open sky. By means of the dome 
also, the necessity for “‘ flies ’—-strips of canvas painted blue to represent the 
sky, and hide the stage machinery—is entirely done away with. Even those 
producers who do not aim at scenic illusion are wise to keep the sky-dome 
within the range of their possible effects. The more realistic possibilities 
have been worked out in the Swedish Ars system which permits of photo- 
graphs of real clouds being projected upon the artificial sky and made to move 
across it. But this is hardly more than a toy interesting to see once, but of 
little use to the play, or the actor. 

Simultaneously with improvements in lighting, have come other mechanical 
contrivances, designed to simplify the task of the producer and to enable him to 
attain a nearer illusion of reality. The attempt to play Shakespeare in terms 
of nineteenth century realism involved a terrible strain on the scene-shifters. 


21 


They had to be forever taking away “ Portia’s House,” and putting 
back ‘‘ Venice, a Street’ ; and with the best will in the world the intervals 
between each scene became longer and longer ; and Shakespeare’s text had 
to be drastically cut in order to be able to get through it in a single evening. 
Also, the continuity of the play was broken up, and the swift Elizabethan 
eloquence failed to leap the gap from scene to scene, and so whip the play 
to a climax. How were old plays to be allowed to retain their verve and 
impetuosity, and at the same time receive all the benefits of modern staging ? 
The answer, for a time at least, seemed to be the revolving stage, invented 
by Lautenschlager at Munich, and installed in the Residenz Theater in 1896, 
in order to facilitate the production of Mozart’s operas. The invention 
enabled all the scenes necessary to be built up solidly before the performance 
began, and by revolving the stage, to bring each in turn into view. 
Five or six settings can be contrived in this way ; if more are needed, they can 
be built up during the play itself, the audience meanwhile being occupied 
with the side of the circle turned towards the proscenium opening. The 
device enables Shakespeare to be played realistically, and without cuts. 
The scenery itself can be of the most solid kind ; although of course con- 
siderable ingenuity is needed to fit the various scenes into segments of the 
circle. In practice the difficulties are so great that in some theatres where 
the revolving stage has been installed, producers make no use of it at all, 
but treat it as part of the ordinary stage floor. 

Many alternatives to the revolving stage have been proposed, and installed 
in theatres in Germany and America—swinging stages, sliding stages, stages 
that sink into a cellar to be set, while the alternative scene descends from under 
the roof, and fits itself into the proscenium arch. All these mechanical 
devices, however, tend to stifle the imagination of the scenic artist, and, 
except for the revolving stage, they make no difference to his problem, except 
that they allow him two elaborate scenes in quick succession where before 
he would have been compelled to simplify. 

But to be compelled to simplify is almost a condition of great art ; to make an 
artist aware of the limitations of his medium is to give him not chains, but 
wings. The very knots in the wood inspire the carver, and the fresco painters 
of the quattrocento painted with such confidence and breadth of handling, 
partly at least, because the plaster dried so quickly. So there was a whole 
school of men interested in the theatre who would not have anything to do 
with all the mechanical contrivances for creating illusion. They no longer 
wished to see Shakespeare performed as the younger Kean would have done 
it, only more expeditiously ; they strove to reach back to the methods of the 
Elizabethans, and to make the plays as frankly theatrical as they had been at 
the first Globe. 

This revolt against the picture-stage, against the attempt to give an illusion 
of life, was part of a larger movement which transformed all the arts during 
the first decade of the twentieth century. Impressionism in painting, and 
naturalism in the theatre both claimed to be the abdication of the artist, 
the world seen through the eye of a camera. Both had their triumphs, but 
both, at the turn of the century, were seen to be culs-de-sac. ‘The old problem 
of art presented itself once more: if the whole object of the arts is to imitate 
nature, then its efforts not only cannot succeed, but would be pointless if 


22 


they could. Of course, neither the Impressionists nor the Naturalists, 
neither Monet nor Zola ever did succeed in eliminating the artist. The very 
slice of life which Zola presented was itself a comment, was itself an attempt 
to expand his own philosophy : and it is an obvious paradox that most 
of the realists were propagandists. 

On the political side, the reaction corresponded with the decay of latssez faire, 
with the failure of the belief in automatic and mechanical progress, with the 
realisation that civilisation is, after all, very fragile, and that nothing durable 
was ever built by accident. The need for Design was felt in every depart- 
ment of life ; and the need, too, to release the theatre from too slavish a 
representation of actuality, and to set it free to soar a little, to be exalted, 
imaginative, even fantastic. ‘The limitations of Maeterlinck’s subject-matter, 
and the thinness of his philosophy, should not blind us to the real service 
which “‘ The Blue Bird” performed for the theatre all over Europe. It 
showed that the “ fairy play’ need not be a tasteless pantomime ; that it 
might itself be literature, and could provide, for the scenic artist, opportunities 
such as the realistic play can never offer. 

Once the pretence of illusion had been given up, it was an easy step back to 
the formal stage ; and permanent or semi-permanent settings had one great 
benefit in the eyes of the producer: they were cheap. All the complicated 
machines which had been invented to increase the opportunities of the theatre 
in reality reduced them, for they tended, with the elaboration of scenery which 
they encouraged, to make production so costly that only those plays could be 
staged which seemed certain of success. Experiment was made impossible ; 
yet it is only by constant experiment that the theatre can flourish. 

The most famous of the formal stages is (or rather was, for the enterprise came 
to an end two years ago) the one established by Jacques Copeau and Louis 
Jouvet at the Vieux Colombier in Paris. Copeau had only a little hall to work 
in, and not much money, and his architectural stage was worked out as the 
result of actual grappling with the problems of production. The absence of 
proscenium arch, the proscenium doors at the side, the balcony at the back, 
and the steps at the front of the stage, enabled him to play both Shakespeare 
and Moliere with a swiftness and intimacy unknown to the commercial 
theatre. Copeau’s stage became the model for others of the same kind. 
He himself transformed the Garrick Theatre in New York, and Louis Jouvet 
presided over the birth of the Marais Theatre at Brussels. 

The “ skeleton setting,”’ by which some of the advantages of the architectural 
stage can be retained in the ordinary theatre, has been especially successful 
in the hands of some of the Dutch designers. In Holland, the new spirit 
in stage decoration dates from 1908 when Verkade began his experiments 
with the “‘ cadre fixe.”’ His répertoire ranged from Shakespeare to Schnitzler, 
and from Shaw to Sheridan. During 1917 and 1918, when he was in charge 
of the Royal Dutch Theatre, his chief designer was H. Th. Wijdeweld, who 
was particularly successful with ‘‘ The Merchant of Venice,” “‘ Don Carlos,” 
and ‘‘ Hamlet.”” Other Dutch designers who have made good use of the 
skeleton setting are Lensvelt, especially in “‘ Gijsbrecht van Aemstel ” and 
“The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Roelvink with his “ Merchant of Venice,” 
and Roland Holst in “ Lucifer.” M.A. van der Lugt Melsert made inter- 
esting use of screens for the production of ‘‘ Life isa Dream.” ‘The interest 


23 


of the Dutch in the art of the theatre was shown by the immense exhibition 
organised in Amsterdam six years ago. ‘This was the collection which was 
transferred bodily to London, and housed at South Kensington. 

The country, however, where the theories of Appia, and the inspiration of 
Craig have borne most fruit is undoubtedly Germany, largely, perhaps, 
through the influence of one great producer, Reinhardt. The whole con- 
ception of the producer is something new in our attitude to the theatre. 
Craig was so anxious for unity that he wished for one man to do everything, 
design the scenes, control the actors, even write the play. He became 
impatient at last even with the actor, and wished to substitute for him the 
“‘ ibermarionette.”” Extreme as this view was, it was stimulating to workers 
in the theatre, and it did much to raise the status of the producer and make 
him, for a time at least, the most important man in the theatre. 

Reinhardt is the typical producer, and it is because he stands for such in the 
eyes of Europe that he is mentioned here, although as interesting things have 
been done in Germany by Jessner, by Fehling and by Weichert. But 
Reinhardt had a universality which none of these, perhaps, possesses, and he 
has moreover been invited to all the chief European capitals, and has left a 
trail of influence behind wherever he went. He began as an actor, interested 
himself in the artistic cabaret movement and founded a cabaret—‘‘ Schall 
und Rauch’’—which developed into the Kleines Theater, with plays by 
Gorky, Wilde and Wedekind. His opportunity came when he was invited 
to succeed Lindau (the short-lived successor of Otto Brahm) at the Deutches 
Theater in Berlin. His production of ‘‘ A Midsummer Night’s Dream ” 
made him famous, and opened the way for the German neo-romantic play- 
wrights. No one has known better how to utilise the materials that lay to 
his hand and he is one of the few producers who have been really successful 
with the revolving stage. His chief scenic designer was Ernst Stern, but 
Roller, Orlik, Esler and Dietz also worked for him. He succeeded in forming 
a company of the best actors in Germany, and showed the breadth of his 
sympathy by a répertoire which embraced German and foreign classics, as 
well as the most modern plays. His method is one of bold stylisation, and 
it is because he does not ride any hobby-horse to death that he is able to 
handle such various material. On everything he imposes his own rhythm : 
the author must leave the producer scope, and the producer himself must 
not cramp the spontaneity of the actor. At the same time, there must be no 
“stars” playing the rest of the cast off the stage. While cruder in his 
ensemble effects than Stanislavsky, Reinhardt is yet careful to see that each 
actor fits into the picture, and does not spoil the symphony by blowing too 
loud on his own trumpet. How much more ready should the author be to 
.hand his manuscript over to such a producer as Reinhardt, than to leave it 
to the mercies of an actor-manager, or of a group of “ stars,’”’ gathered 
together haphazard and producing themselves by the light of nature! The 
success of Reinhardt seems to demonstrate that the producer has come to stay. 
Germany, more than most countries, was able to breed rapidly a whole race 
of such men: Savitz and Klein at Munich, Fanto and Schumucher at 
Dresden. The system of subsidised theatres, and still more the existence 
of a serious theatre-going public, enabled bold experiments to be carried out 
without danger of too much loss. The universal method was to simplify 


24 


and to stylise, and some producers certainly pushed their desire for stylisation 
to extreme limits. Jessner’s famous flight of steps, effective at first, lost 
point with too much repetition, and there was a general tendency to imagine 
that a stage device which had been successful in one play was capable of 
universal application. 

In the period immediately following the War, the theories of ‘‘ Der Sturm,” 
the Berlin group of Expressionists, began to have an influence which, though 
vitalising, led to some extravagance. The effort to paint, not objects, but 
the emotions aroused by those objects in the mind of the artist, may possibly 
succeed in easel-pictures ; it is doomed to failure on the stage. Easel-painting 
interests such a small and, on the whole, cultured and sophisticated public, 
that it can risk much more in the way of abstraction and obscurity than is 
possible in the would-be popular art of the theatre. All the aesthetic 
fashions of Paris have found their echo on the stage, most of all, perhaps, 
cubism ; but there is obviously a limit beyond which stylisation in scene- 
painting becomes absurd. ‘The marionette theatre has great possibilities 
for stylising even the forms of the doll-actors, but, on the ordinary stage, 
the human body refuses to reinforce the unity of a cubist background. The 
only logical solution, as M. Xavier de Courville has remarked, is that of the 
two Russian ballets, “‘ Parade’ and ‘‘ Chout,’’ in which the dancers were 
given the appearance of figures in a cubist picture. But this is only possible, 
or desirable, in certain special productions, such as those two named. 
Nothing whatever is gained by playing Shakespeare before a curtain covered 
with forms which are neither recognisable enough to contribute to the 
emotion of the play, nor quiet enough to provide a neutral, undistracting 
background. 

Expressionism, however, had its value in widening scope of both subject and 
treatment ; although some of the German Expressionists chose to include 
many things which most people would rather see excluded. The mere 
dredging of the unconscious cannot produce art, although it is equally true 
that it is from something deeper and wider than the conscious intelligence 
that art of any kind gains its power. Expressionism taught both playwrights 
and producers that naturalism was nothing but a convention, to be used 
when it proved useful, but not otherwise ; that there was no reason why 
characters should not speak their thoughts, that the aside was not necessarily 
absurd, and that the stage can be a fitting frame for dreams, as well as a mirror 
of the surface world. Expressionism and the reaction against cumbrous 
scenery worked together in abolishing the tyranny of the three-act form ; 
and the cinema, by suggestion and analogy, made it possible for the dramatist 
to construct his play in twenty scenes, if he wished it, as the Elizabethans 
had done before him. Dream and reality can be mingled at will, and ghosts 
can appear without any creaking of stage machinery, for the mood can be 
induced in which ghosts seem possible, and there is no reason to do more 
than suggest an actual apparition. To a certain extent Expressionism, as a 
literary event, was a compound of perverted sex, war-weariness, and general 
disillusionment, in the years that followed the Armistice, but its effect on the 
theatre was a revelation of infinite possibilities, for which the dramatist of the 
future cannot but be grateful. 

In these, as they might be called, revolutionary movements, Reinhardt has 


29 


taken little if any part. His contribution to the freedom of the theatre has 
sprung naturally from his early conception of the different sizes of theatre 
needed for different productions. In charge of the Deutches Theater, seating 
about a thousand, he wished for a more intimate theatre, and also for a larger 
arena where broader effects might be presented to an audience of five thousand. 
These two desires gave birth to the Kleines Theater and to the Grosses 
Schauspielhaus, but long before the latter was built he had made use of the 
‘ circus-theatre” for such productions as “‘ Oedipus Rex” and “ The 
Miracle.’ In both of these he endeavoured to bring the players and the 
audience into the closest possible contact, he abolished the proscenium, he 
distributed some of his actors among the spectators, and he strove to make 
the emotion of his public not so much an echo of the emotion on the stage 
as the driving force behind it. He wished to re-establish that unity of actor 
and audience, of priest and people, if you will, which was broken when the 
theatre emerged from the portals of the church. 

This endeavour has been carried still further by Meyerhold in Russia. 
Meyerhold worked for years under Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, 
became dissatisfied with the methods of realism, left for a time, returned 
to take charge of the “‘ Studio ” theatre, and then sought, in the theatre of 
Vera Kommissarjevska, a wider field for his talents, and a better chance of 
developing his own ideas. In the naturalistic theatre, even when it is con- 
cerned with fantastic plays like “‘ The Blue Bird,”’ an effort is always made to 
pretend that the audience is not there. The actors go about their business 
(such is the theory) as if the imaginary fourth wall were really built, and as 
if there were not hundreds of pairs of eyes fixed on their every movement. 
This seemed to Meyerhold to be the negation of acting. He wanted the 
theatre to be frankly theatrical, for the actor to take the audience into his 
confidence, not with a sly wink as Hawtrey used to do, but freely and openly. 
The actor came to seem very important to Meyerhold, and the audience not 
less so. A captious critic might complain that this lands us once more in 
the middle of Bernhardtism, but Meyerhold is subtler than that. He likes 
to draw inspiration from the Commedia dell ’Arte, from the days when the 
actor stood on two planks at a fair, and improvised his part from a skeleton 
scenario. He would like to banish literature from the theatre, but his practice 
is less extreme than his theory, and the beauty and force of his productions 
are generally acknowledged. He has remained one of the most vital figures 
in the artistic life of Russia since the revolution. 

Another attempt to bring actor and spectator into harmony has been made 
by Evreinov, with his theory of ‘‘monodrama.” As this is a matter of 
literature rather than of scenic design it will be sufficient to touch on it here. 
Evreinov’s theory was that the whole drama should be staged as if it were 
seen through the eyes of the principal character, with whom it was thought, 
the spectator would then identify himself, and so get from the play the utmost 
possible exaltation and cleansing. This method, it would seem, is only 
interesting if the principal character is abnormal. The distorted world of 
his imagination can be used to reflect light on his own soul ; but even this 
can be done much more completely on the screen than on the stage. If the 
principal character is normal, Evreinov’s ‘‘ monodrama ”’ proves to be not 
very different from old-fashioned melodrama, where everything that happens 


26 


is seen through the eyes of the innocent and slightly simple-minded heroine. 
The whole advantage of being an author, a dramatist, is to be able to explore 
Bee chology of both hero and villain, and to set in motion their conflicting 
wills, 

A more important innovator, from the point of view of stage design, is Tairov. 
After the Revolution in Russia, Futurism became an official art, and artists 
of the advanced schools found wonderful scope for their talents, not only in 
the theatre, but in organising popular manifestations, military reviews and 
open air fétes. The destruction and disorder which was everywhere apparent 
gave birth to “ Constructivism,” which was partly the result of a desire to 
reorganise and stabilise life, and was partly an echo of the theories of Marinetti, 
the Italian Futurist. Men had no sooner convinced themselves of the 
dangers of mechanical civilisation, than they began to be enamoured of the 
esthetic properties of machines. ‘The machine, it was thought, was the 
symbol of the Present, and even theatrical décor ought to stress the dominance 
of pulleys and wheels and pistons. ‘“‘ Constructivism ” for Tairov, developed 
into a system of stage scaffolding, and the various actions of a play took place 
at different levels, up flights of wooden steps, across ladders, or on little jutting 
platforms far above the stage. Decoration was reduced to the frankly 
symbolic, to an almost mathematical abstraction. For certain modern 
plays, especially those which are assumed to take place in a workshop or 
factory, Constructivism may be very effective, but it is hardly a universal 
formula, and has indeed been already abandoned by some of its chief 
exponents. 

Another endeavour to find such a formula, at least for the more imaginative 
kind of dramatic production, has recently been made in Italy. This is the 
Tetiteatro of Alberto Martini, and its peculiarity is the use of water, sur- 
rounding the stage like a moat. The acoustic properties of water are well 
known, and with modern lighting resources the surface of the miniature lake 
which lies between stage and audience can no doubt be made to yield the 
most magical effects. The stage itself, an island, or rather a peninsular 
jutting towards the audience, is fixed and permanent, the front and sides 
completely open, while the back can be closed by a curtain or backcloth. 
Drawbridges, or flights of steps can be constructed to give access to the 
actors, and if necessary islands established at various points in the lake. The 
central stage is set in various ways for different productions. It can be built 
up like a central rock, with different levels on which the actions of the play 
can take place. It lends itself admirably to some modified form of Fessner- 
treppen. ‘The form of the Tetiteatro compels a certain stylisation, although 
it is conceivable that such a play as “The Merchant of Venice’ might be 
presented realistically, if such were the producer’s wish. While the main 
action takes place on the central stage, subsidiary actions may be played on 
the islands, and change of place can be indicated without change of décor. 
In fact something like the mediaeval multiple setting is made possible without 
the bareness of that convention. 

There are certain obvious difficulties in constructing such a theatre indoors. 
The lake must be more than a mere ditch if it is to be effective, and the need 
of ample space seems to make it more suitable for an outdoor spectacle, 
somewhere in the south of Europe, where the climate is a little less fickle than 


27 


itis in England.* The actual décors designed by Martini show high imagina- 
tive power, and with proper lighting there is little doubt that a Greek tragedy, 
for example, could be presented with tremendous force. Wagner’s music 
dramas, so often the point of departure for scenic innovators, provide Martini 
with a great opportunity. For the ‘“‘ magic fire” in the “ Valkyrie,” he 
proposes to set in motion under the water, by means of an electrical apparatus, 
a reflection of conventionalised flames. In fact there is no effect of the new 
lighting which would not be intensified by the intervening water, and no sound 
which would not reach the audience more resonantly. Martini would also 
use the Tetiteatro as a platform for orchestral music, and he has designed 
settings for Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky and Beethoven. The scheme is 
typical of the many that have been propounded in recent years with the 
avowed object of restoring unity to the theatre. 

The salient facts which emerge from a study of the history of the last two 
decades are : the perfecting of theatrical machinery, and the reaction against 
it; the rise of the producer to supreme power in the theatre ; the appearance 
of the theatrical designer, who is neither a mere scene-painter, in the old 
sense, nor an artist called in from outside because of his reputation for easel- 
pictures ; the abolition of so-called naturalism ; and the enormous extension 
of the subject-matter of possible plays. When one considers the restrictions 
which have hampered dramatists in the past—the conventions of tragedy, the 
conventionalities of melodrama, the fanaticism of the realists, how wide by 
contrast seems the scope of the modern writer for the theatre ! There is no 
subject however sordid, which he may not lift to grandeur, and no dream 
however fantastic, which, thanks to a frank theatricality, cannot be played 
upon the stage. Without losing any of the modern subtlety of analysis, the 
dramatist can reach back to the universality of the mediaeval mystery. 

Much depends, of course, upon our conception of what the theatre should be. 
It is difficult for ardent reformers to see any good whatever in what they call 
the commercial stage, and yet it is the producers of revues who have done 
most to familiarise the British public with the triumphs of Continental scenic 
design. It is a not unworthy function merely to amuse, and if it be objected 
that many London plays serve no other conceivable purpose than to sooth the 
digestion of the tired business man, it may be answered that the business man’s 
digestion is not without importance in a mercantile state. If the stage touches 
the church on one hand it touches less reputable places on the other, nor can 
it ever be different, for if the theatre is immortal, human nature is not less so. 
Those who scour Europe too eagerly in search of the new spirit are apt to 
find nothing but the old flesh. 

Yet the theatre might be so much more than, too often, it seems content to be. 
How few, even of the most successful plays, have anything at all to offer to the 
spirit of man! So rare is it to be profoundly moved by a theatrical per- 
formance that we have almost forgotten the exhilaration of the Elizabethans, 


*A temporary Water-Theatre was among the attractions of the German Theatre Exhibition 
held at Magdeburg from May to September this year. The stage consisted of a round 
wooden platform anchored in the middle of an artificial lake. Nothing ambitious was 
attempted, but dances and gymnastic displays were given after dark; and with coloured 
searchlights from the bank playing upon the participants, and reflected in the intervening 
water, gave some hint of what such a theatre might become in the hands of a great Producer. 


28 


the sustained enthusiasm of the dramatic guilds, the religious exaltation of the 
Greeks. ‘To them, to all these, the theatre was not the amusement of an hour, 
but the gateway to a fuller life, not a way of passing the time, but a foretaste 
of Eternity. Before the porch of the cathedral, as in the theatre of Dionysus, 
men felt themselves absorbed into the larger being of the community, reunited 
into the fullness of the God. 

Harmony, Unity, the Communion of the Saints! Have they gone for ever 
with the triumph of the conscious intelligence ? But that triumph is over. 
The retreat from the edge of that precipice is universal. All these attempts 
to make the theatre something more than a glorified dyspepsia tablet, are but 
part of a much larger movement. The finest intelligences of our time have 
begun to realise the limitations of intelligence ; the future leaders of humanity 
have foresworn the exaggerations of humanism, and gone to school with the 
Schoolmen. Rationalism narrows the world to the individual, and the 
individual, finding his solitude unbearable, destroys himself. ‘To believe in 
some kind of spiritual reality beyond ourselves is necessary to our very 
existence ; and the life of Western Europe depends upon its ability to dig 
below the surface of its mechanised civilisation, and find the old wells of the 
Water of Life. It is often said that the theatre is born of a cult, is the child 
of religion. It would be truer to say that religion and drama were born 
together, are, in their origins, as indivisible as prayer and the words of prayer, 
as worship and its appropriate gesture. For it is in drama that the Gods 
become incarnate, or rather it is always the same God, who dies and rises 
again, suffers and is triumphant, Spirit of Corn and Wine, symbol of man’s 
redemption. | 

The theatre might play, perhaps, a preponderant part in the saving of Europe 
and of mankind, and if, to the theatrical speculator, to the theatre manager, 
and even to too many actors, such a hope seems nothing but a fantastic 
dream, it is at least a dream which has inspired all the best that has been 
accomplished during the last twenty pregnant years of the theatre’s history. 


Dorothy Mullock 


29 


Alexander, A. . 
Appia, A. 


Bakshy, A. 

Baty, G. . ‘ 
Bragaglia, A. G. 
Carter, H. : 


+) 


Cheney, Sheldon 
Craig, E. Gordon 


Fischel, O. 
Fornaro, Carlo de 
Frisch, E. : 
Fuerst, W. R. . 
Gatti, C. : 


Geddes, Norman-Bel 


Gregor, J. 


Jones, Robert Edmond 


Kinsila, E. B. . 
Klein, Adrian B. 
Levinson, André 
Macgowan, K. 
Macgowan, K., an 
Jones, R. E. 
Matthews, Bache 
Moderwell, H. K. 
Moussinac, L. . 
Nicoll, A. 
Parnack, V. 
Pichel, I. : 
Playfair, Nigel . 
Propert, W. A. 
- Ridge, C. Harold 
Rouché, J. : 
Sayler, O.M. 


Smith, A. 
Stern, E., and 


Herald, H. 
Verkade, E. 


30 


SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The Decorative Art of Leon Bakst. 1913. 
Die Musik und die Inscenierung. 1899. 
L’Oeuvre d’Art vivant. 1921. ; 

The Path of the modern Russian Stage. 1916. 
Le Masque et l’Encensoir. 1926. 

La Maschera mobile. 1926. 

The New Spirit in Drama and Art. 1912. 
The Theatre of Max Reinhardt. 1914. 
The New Spirit in the European Theatre. 1925. 
Modern Art and the Theatre. 1921. 

The Art of the Theatre. 1905. 

On the Art of the Theatre. 1911. 
Towards a new Theatre. 1913. 

The Theatre advancing. 1921. 

Scene. 1923. 

Das moderne Bihnenbild. 1923. 

John Wenger. 1925. 

Von der Kunst des Theaters. 1910. 

Du Décor. 1925. 

Il Teatro alla Scala Rinnovato. 1926. 
The Divine Comedy. 1925. 

Wiener szenische Kunst. 1924. 

Drawings for the Theatre. 

Modern Theatre Construction. 1917. 
Colour Music, the Art of Light. 1927. 
The Story of Leon Bakst’s Life. 1923. 
The Theatre of To-morrow. 1923. 
Continental Stage-craft. 1923. 


History of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. 1924. 

The Theatre of To-day. 1923. 

La Décoration théatrale. 1922. 

The Development of the Theatre. 1927. 

Gontcharova, Larionow: |’Art décoratif theatral. 

Modern Theatres. 1925. 

Story of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. 1925. 

The Russian Ballet in Western Europe. 1921. 

Stage Lighting for “‘ Little’ Theatres. 1925. 

L’Art théatral moderne. 1910. 

The Russian Theatre. 1923. 

Max Reinhardt and his Theatre. 
O. M.S.) 1924. 

The Scenewright. 1926. 

Reinhardt und seine Buhne. 1920. 


(Edited by 


Aanteckeningen over Tooneel-kunst. 1916. 


Werumeus Buning, Het Tooneeldecor. 1923. 


Brey . F 
Young, Stark . . Theatre Practice. 1926. 


Periodicals. 
Drama (London). 
The Mask (Florence). 
Theatre Arts Monthly (New York). 
Werdingen (The organ of the Amsterdam Society ‘‘Architectura et Amicitia.”’) 
Occasional Numbers devoted to theatrical subjects, viz. :— 
1919. No.3. The Dance. 
, No. 5. Theatrical Posters. 
7 Nos. 9 and 10. Stage Design. 
2 No. 11. Theatre Architecture. 
1920. Nos.6and 7. Masks. 
1921. Nos. 7 and 8. Marionettes. 
ob Nos. 9 and 10. Theatre Exhibition at Amsterdam. 
1925. No.2. Masks. 


Catalogues of Theatrical Exhibitions. 


Paris ; : . Exhibition 1900. Groupe III, Classe 18, Matériel 
de l’Art Théatral. Catalogue published 1902. 


-3 : : . Union centrale des Arts décoratifs. Exposition 
théatrale. 1908. 
is : : . Exposition Internationale des Arts décoratifs 
(Theatrical Sections). 1925. 
Mannheim : . Freie Bund. Moderne Theaterkunst. 1913. 
Magdeburg . . Deutsche Theater-Ausstellung. 1927. 
Zurich . : . Theaterkunst Ausstellung. 1914. 
Amsterdam. . Stedelijk Museum. Internationale Theater 
Tentoonstelling. 1922. 
London . . International Theatre Exhibition. 1922. 
New York ; . International Theatre Exposition. 1926. 


Note.—Most of the above books and periodicals may be 
consulted in the Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 


31 


THE DEVIL IS-AN ASS” 


6é 


NSON’S 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME IN BEN JO 


BY LOVAT FRASER 


(Property of Mrs. Lovat Fraser) 


PLA LE@1 


GREAT BRITAIN 


SSSI ee nha 


ree 


ING BY 


JAMES PRYDE 


OIL PAINT 
PLATE 2 


GREAT BRITAIN 


G. (40) 5, L&W a Can 
Ho — Wa gin lef Mt 
Ap Ts och, aS-Sucruspuseel’ myheart bleed? fatuicr as Spt 
sagt Lee tgs mt Heche Oe aa) pi 
ane (atetane 8) waiplyed. Kih-bvin np M-nib-of lt ay hnsal 
| lathe tit sccnp gh hd Which 'o draiceign bei Cfts Mard 
he eon OO an tal ~Talechine aurag pre. if wit he 
Meap "a! gn lathe : fant haw Ba 
ermab- a sao-gfokan. - alts Wat broip huis backs cyaiu c 
font Hes a peg OT daub fude a a 
Kw ) 
Gr aes Popa oon oe 
Hhiabef tear beffrrice’ Lae " Ocespas aKiaie te Fogg 
pa Ka, «re Sedh Tefolbs “sthva 


he a hein 3 , 
hagll-a bh abnd- teed — Ye \ 


VIA DELLA COSTA DI SERRETTO 17 SAN MARTINO D’ABARO GENOVA (10) 


My dear Sheringham, 

You ask me for a word of cheer and encouragement to 
go to the designers in the Theatre—or rather OUT of the Theatre, for they 
are (all but about 3) unemployed. The last thing that the unemployed stand 
in need of is that celebrated thing “‘ a good talk ” or that famous crumb “a 
word of cheer ’’—-But I have a favour to ask of them and it is this, that 
they shall pity the poor playwright. Think of his sufferin’ family—think 
of all the misery he endures, and hardly £30,000 in the world to bless 
himself with—and then think of his motor-car. After having 
thought a bit about that, make up your minds to have a motor 
car too—then give the poor playwright (my heart bleeds for 
him as I pen these lines) give him a lift. Lift him right 
out of the playhouse which is draining his life’s blood 
—take him away from it until he knows how to play 
in it—after that bring him back again and hand 
him over to the actors: but you must tell 
them they are not to spoil him again— 

‘Once upon a time the Frogs grieved 
at having no ruler sent to Jupiter 
intreating for a few Fabians 
.... but you know 
that old story. 
Here’s luck. 
JUNE, 1927 Yours GORDON CRAIG 


Weegee LETTER FROM EDWARD GORDON CRAIG 
PLA 3 


GREAT BRITAIN 


FoR oy ote Ra 


77 vt. a iar i he 
DIE ES SETS DE OE CD 


7 ey 
— ae. 


—j 


DESIGN FOR A MASK OF A FOOL— 


PART CLOWN, PART DEATH— 


SPHINX AND BOY 
BY GORDON CRAIG 


(Property of R. Boyd Morrison, Esq.) 


PLATE 4 


GREAT BRITAIN 


H 
me) - 
F [1 
, - 
H 
@ 
} 
ofl g 
| i 
i 4 
Hf BE fa FO 
r3 Hl 
§ 


mae = 25 


if 
i 
| 


ORIGINAL PROJECT FOR “ THE BEGGAR’S OPERA” 


(Property of Victor Hembrow, Esa.) 


steer eS 


wh ay 
ag Gz atl Nyce 


a 07%, wim RAB THE AWARE a PN Ie Se 


DESIGN FOR STAGE SET FOR “ RIP VAN “WINKLE Rs 
BY LOVAT FRASER 


(Property of MES Lovat Fraser.) 


PLATE 5 


GREAT BRITAIN 


Din abi | 
(fear lnte fry 7p 


PROJECTS FOR COSTUMES FOR “ THE BEGGAR’S OPERA” 
BY LOVAT FRASER 


(Property of Victor Hembrow, Esa.) 


PLATE 6 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR ‘“ THE FOREST ’—A SCENE IN THACKERAY’S 
“THE ROSE AND THE RING” WYNDHAM’S THEATRE, 1923-24. 


7 4 ; ‘-. 3 


be - 
: . Be 3 


be.) 


& ~~ a Is Ae 
° 
& 
bes | j 
# - 


DESIGN FOR CUT CLOTH FOR WASHINGTON IRVING’S “ THE 
PILGRIM OF LOVE” ACT I., SCENE II., THE PRINCESS’ BEDROOM 
BY AUBREY HAMMOND 

PLATE 7 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR THE KING’S COSTUME IN WASHINGTON IRVING’S 
“THE PILGRIM OF LOVE” 

BY AUBREY HAMMOND 

PLATE 8 


GREAT BRITAIN 
4 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME OF GENTLEMAN-IN-WAITING IN 
“NOW AND THEN ”—VAUDEVILLE THEATRE 

BY AUBREY HAMMOND 

PLATE 9 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR ROBES OF ARCHBISHOP OF NIDAROS 
IN “ THE PRETENDERS ’’—ACT II. BY S. H. SIME 


(Property of the Victoria and Albert Museum.) 


PLATE 10 


GREAT BRITAIN 


“KING LEAR” BY CHARLES RICKETTS, A.R.A. 


DESIGN FOR STAGE SETTING FOR 


(Property of the Victoria and Albert Museum.) 


PLATE 11 


GI ULV Id 


(umesny, Woq[y pue e1I0}D1A 9Y} JO AjJINd01g) 


SV ty Gua bo tLe SaTaVHO Ad « NONWANVOV, XOX ONILLAS AOV.LS YO NOISAG 


NIVLIG LVS 


GREAT BRITAIN 


/ 


j s 
F 


a 


TRAVELLING CLOAK FOR “ DOMITZIA” IN ROBERT BROWNING’S “ LURIA” 
BY NORMAN WILKINSON OF FOUR OAKS 


(Property of the Victoria and Albert Museum.) 


PLATE 13 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR JOURDAIN IN “ BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME” 
BY NORMAN WILKINSON OF FOUR OAKS 
PLATE 14 


GREAT BRITAIN 


THE OLD MAN AND THE YOUNG 

MAN—MASKS DESIGNED FOR W. B. 
YEATS’ PLAY “ THE HAWKES WELL ” 
BY EDMUND DULAC 

PLATE 15 


GREAT BRITAIN 


0 
ud 
Ls 
rn 


os 


i —- 
vam 
i -§} 
Si 


STAGE MODEL FOR “ THE DUENNA” 
DESIGNED BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM AND 
EXECUTED BY VICTOR HEMBROW 


(Property of the Victoria and OT Museum.) 


E 16 


ce 


81 ALV Id 
SHVO YNOA AO NOSNIMTIM NVWYON AG 
SSAQCYAaHdAHS INAHLIVA AHL, YOA ONILLYS ADVIS 


GREAT BRITAIN 


MBROW 
PLAT 


4 
4 


VICTOR HE 


“MAGBETH? BY: 


OR 


F 


~ y 
B gk 


DESI¢ 


19 


~ 
4 


GREAT BRITAIN 


PROJECTS FOR WOODLAND SETS 
BY VICTOR HEMBROW 
PLATE 20 


GREAT BRITAIN 


PROJECT FOR INTERCHANGEABLE SET 
BY CICELY MEDLYCOTT 
PLATE 21 


GREAT BRITAIN 


a f 
Mass Bore Evans = NEGLI g € 


Tee Peaun Sia aKeaqiwn 


DESIGN FOR NEGLIGE COSTUME FOR 
“THE BEAUX STRATAGEM ” 

BY POLLY HILL CLARKE 

PLATE 22 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR BALLET COSTUME FOR 

“ COLUMBINA” IN “A VENETIAN WEDDING ” 
BY LAURENCE IRVING 

PLATE 23 


% ALV Id 


aot paye eee PtP pal Aervag 


vet ey nto om t 


NIV.LIYd LVadoO 


S¢ ULV Id 
WaTHOAVA LHOINSIN “A Ad 
« HLAT AYNHH;,, SO TTANVAld AO SLAS WOX SNOISAC 


of 

: 
14 
8 

4 
4 

} 

| 

| 

' 


i 


3 
4 
a 
BH 


eee tte Te 


Sy TR eee 


RE 


Die 


eT TET 
scoala hat ae as 


NIVLINA LVAYO 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR IRISH COSTUME 
BY WILLIAM CONOR 
PLATE 26 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME 
OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 
BY TOM HESLEWOOD 
PLATE 27 


8% ULV Id 

GOOMAISAH WOL Ad 
«A AUNGH » WOd 

LAS ADVLS AO TACOWN 


a 


NIV.LIUA LVaAYD 


GREAT BRITAIN 


* 


\ 


* 


METHUSELAH ” 


DESIGNED BY PAUL SHELVING 


PLATE 29 


He PN GA GPS BG 


GREAT BRITAIN 


“BACK TO METHUSELAH ” 
DESIGNED BY PAUL SHELVING 
PLATE 30 


GREAT BRITAIN 


R Bayt Pigrrane * 


he 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR “IRISH WAR PIPER” 

FOR RUDDICK MILLAR’S “SIR BRYAN AND THE BANQUET” 
BY R. BOYD MORRISON 

PLATE 31 


GREAT BRITAIN 


« 


és S eI 
4 = 


Bs 


QS SEES ET 


el lat Me MMM TAME EPO T 
a8 Ri MMs SO 


oli ETA EMR I EN St ES 


e 
y 
y 
y 
4 
y 
4 
4 
y 
f 
f 
j 
A 4 
Y 
yi 
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f 
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t 
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f 
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SS eee - 


SSS 


NRA teem Red 
ANRANSSASIAASAAA ces 


> 
SS 
et 


BARBARA MORLEY HORDER’S PRODUCTION OF 
“ MINNIKIN AND MANNIKIN ” 

DRAWN BY PAUL ROTHA 

PLATE 32 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR A REVUE COSTUME 
BY OLIVER MESSEL 
PLATE 33 


GREAT BRITAIN 2 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME IN 

“ONE DAM THING AFTER ANOTHER” 
BY DORIS ZINKEISEN 

PLATE 34 


\ 
| | 
i if 
x 


CTO YT or 


$y \ 
: 
rf 4 
/ 3 Le 
j i \ 
i 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR THE REVUE “STILL DANCING” 


BY DORIS ZINKEISEN 
PLATE 35 


\\ 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME DESIGN 
PHILLIPA GEE 
PLATE 36 


GREAT BRITAIN 


CA.1790, 


COSTUME OF 1790 
PAUL ROTHA 
PLATE 37 


1922-23. 


lity, 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME OF 1822-23 
PAUL ROTHA 
PLATE 38 


GREAT BRITAIN 


PLATE 39 


A GARDEN SET 
REGINALD BRILL 


OF HLV' Id 
NOSNITIV NVIYAV 
Aq@’IOSI GNV NV.LSIUL IT LOV wOd. ANHOS 


NIVLIYG LVAD 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME DESIGN 
ADRIAN ALLINSON 
PLATE 41 


spre 


GREAT BRITAIN 


TRL Aa a I eee 


3 ) 
COSTUME DESIGN — FOR 
“ THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE” 
RANDOLPH SCHWABE 

PLATE 42 


e’ ALV Id 
GuvVNudd AAAVTO 
ANATU V YOA ONLLLAS ADV.LS YOL ONIMVUC NOILVAATA « SONOS 5, 


rm el ; are 


NIV.LIYd LVAYO 


re ALV'Id 
CUVNYAd YAATIO 
LATIVd NYALSVA NV YOd ONILLAS ADVLS AO FALLOAdSUAd 4 


ozs) CeeMAa EY ATO 


es Soe 


NIVLIY@ LVAYD 


GREAT BRITAIN 


DESIGN FOR CABARET 
JOHN ARMSTRONG 
PLATE 46 


Ly ALV'Id 
HSVN ‘IhNVd 
LAS HOV.LS 


Sys 


NIV.LIYd LVAYO 


8h ALV Id 
QTaANTVS Wea 
SLVHA ‘€ “MAG AVId UOA LAS AODVLS 


NIV.LIYG LVAUD 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR “ WOMAN OF THE SIDHE” 


NORAH McGUINNESS 


PLATE 49 


GREAT BRITAIN 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COSTUMES 
VERA WILLOUGHBY 


Courtesy of D. Marshall & Co., Ltd. 
PLATE 50 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME FOR DANCER 
REGINALD LEEFE 
PLATE 51 


SWOMNMWOHY 


? 


DE SLGN 


COST UNE 


EGINALD LEEFE 


pegs 


ATE 52 


Pi 


GREAT BRITAIN 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR A DANCER 
BY REGINALD LEEFE 
PLATE 53 


GREAT BRITAIN 


x gs, 5 TES ot Gite pe al 
y Yj 

Las, 4 ‘Hate . . 
me oe t 

z ree Py SIS) 
e * 7. z 
; Ss 

oars ; SSS es ake z Clg Fi 
eS, y ae -ee 9 age 
WS ne ‘ee gt rine > = — 
~ _ a, 


DESIGN FOR 


‘“ CYMBELINE,” ACT I. 


BY ALBERT 
RUTHERSTON 


and 


(Property of the Victoria 


Albert Museum.) 


PLATE 54 


gg ALVW Id 
NOLSYAHLNY LYaaTv Ad 


«AOUOT AOVINVA AT,, YOH THACOW 
iar yen 2 oN mee as % es e ER aatR Tr ee sralti aise 


NIV.LIYA LVAD 


99 ALV'Id 
HOSNG ‘O ‘V Ad LIT AGNV GaTTIGON ‘daNSISad 

(AVALSdNVH ‘AULVAHL NVINNAUAAD) « GHONDOUA UVAN ATA V>» 

‘I ANAOS ‘AI LOV «WOSAGNIM AO SHAIM AUUAWN AHL» YOT TAGCOW 


NIV.LINd LYAYO 


Le ALVId 
NOLdNVH TAVHOIN AG GANDISAAC 
AOGIYVANVO ‘AWLVAHL IVALLSAI «‘AVId LOASNI AHL, NOW ANAS 


NIV.LIGd LVAD 


89 ALV'Id 
waddOH Ad TUOW ‘d Ad daNdIsad 
NOGNOT ‘AULVaHL SLUV AHL 


~—*i. i. opr cok oe 
Re 


— 


tte 


NIV.LIGd LVAYO 


69 ALV Id 
LNVYIOD NVONOG Ad 
« NVA.LSOd AHL, LATIV€ XOX NOISAG HLOTONOVA 


NIV.LIYA LVAYO 


09 ALV'Id 
duivo “dW Ad 
HOUNANIGA “AULVAHL SONIM YOA NIV.LANO 


| re | ne ‘4 .— 


NIV.LIYd LVAYO 


PLATE 61 


“2 
<— 
La 
op) 
a) 
<— 
fa 
aa) 
aa) 
O 
Z 
aa 
~ 
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es 
— 
Pal 
faa) 
ae 
ee 
(x) 
aa) 
O 
<— 
= 
a 
aa) 
— 
Ee 
N 
O 
aa 
ae 
be 
faa 
© 
ag 
ae 
O 
aa} 
=> 
© 
ae 
O. 


GREAT BRITAIN 


Tn ee ENV VY VV VV VV VV YVVYYYYY.» 


MODEL WITH SCENE AND FIGURES FOR 
“ THE BLIND BOY” 

BY B. POLLOCK OF HOXTON 

PLATE 62 


GREAT BRITAIN 


~ POLLOCKS 


Wi 


BACKCLOTH FOR MODEL THEATRE 
“ WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT” 
BY B. POLLOCK, OF HOXTON 
PLATE 63 


oth DACA IMT ge 
Lt MM) Hf 


Ln pemeTh th 


E508 eee 


Pty 


‘| " A day 
es oie {ULAR 


q Vitis 
* N\A 
Eats 

¢ » . 


wa 
= 


GREAT BRITAIN 


ae: 


—— GY 


bihaihy| 
a ei 


all 


Mi 


it 


(1) ACT DROP FOR “ WHEN CRUMMLES PLAYED ” 
(2) BACKCLOTH FOR “ HARLEQUINADE ” 
DESIGNED BY JEAN CAMPBELL 

PLATE 64 


G9 ALV’ Id 

LAGYaAVI GNVY IXNAH-OUVIN Ad 
ANOUdOddIH NOGNOT 4H 

LY «aSOOD YAHLOW », ANINOLNVd 
FHL YOA NOISAG « ANVTASOOD ;, 


NIV.LIVG LVAYO 


99 ALV Td 
LHAAYAAVT GNV INNAH-OUVI AG 
FULVAHL SATVA «‘NNV ADDAd;, YOA NOISAd 


~<a ect 


<i. 


me 


» 


NIV.LIY@ LVAD 


CONTINENTAL 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME OF 

PRINCE GIVDON IN “LE COQ D’OR” 
BY NATALIA GONTCHAROVA 

PLATE 67 


CONTINENTAL 


DESIGN FOR COSTUME IN “LA LITURGIE” 


PLATE 68 


BY NATALIA GONTCHAROVA 


69 ALV1d 

NINA'10d 
MINIGVIA Ad 
(ASNOH ONILVA 
NVISSNY) LAYVAVO 
V uod NOISAAC 


: ‘IVLNANILNOO 


CONTINENTAL 


a 


DESIGN FOR “LE COQ D’OR” 


BY NATALIA GONTCHAROVA 


PLATE 70 


tL ALV 1d 


(sseig pivéeg ey pue AueduroyD surysiiqnd uesoy Jepuexey ,,e}!] ssyeq uoay Jo AIO} BY L ,, WOAJ peonpoidey) 


LSMV@ NOAT Ad 
(. NVLLSVddS LS») ANAOS LINVA AHL Yod NOLLVYOOUd AOV.LS 


TIV.LNANLLNOO 


GL ALV'Id 


(sSdiq piedeg ay], pue Auedurog surysiyqng uesoy Jopuexely ,,‘aJI7] S.3SHe_ uosy] jo A1OMPoYT ,, Wo1y psonpoidsy) 


LSHYVd NOAT AG « ALAHOVT, AYOX NOLLVYOOUd AOV.LS 


TV.LNANILLNOO 


eo ee ee. eee eee Ee) ie en eee ee ee ee oe ee 7. ee ee ee ee eee ee ee 


ss = * 
ae 
See a 
Da cm t= gtd f 
= " x Ty tai 
be Cn’ ye 4 
; : oe 
fan we s 
i ioe ; a 
» 24 4: eae <hae 
* 


ae a ; =13 
Pa 4 eT OS 
3 ery "SAS: ~ 
“3 Sean Sow EEE SS GIAO ES 5 


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COSTUME FOR “LE CHANTRE ET LA DEVOTE” BY LEON BAKST 


(Reproduced from ** The Story of Leon Bakst’s Life,’’ Alexander Kogan Publishing Company and The Bayard Press) 


PLATE 73 


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2 3° 4 


ne SNe ee) 


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CONTINENTAL 


CONTINENTAL 


WANDERING MUSICIAN’S COSTUME FOR “THE GOOD HUMOURED LADIES” 
: BY LEON BAKST 


(Reproduced from *‘ The Story of Leon Bakst's Life,’’ Alexander Kogan Publishing Company and The Bayard Press) 


PLATE 74 


CONTINENTAL 


“LA POUPEE AUX DENTELLES” FOR “ BOUTIQUE FANTASQUE” 
BY LEON BAKST 


(Reproduced from ‘‘ The Story of Leon Bakst’s Life,’’ Alexander Kogan Publishing Company and The Bayard Press) 


PLATE 75 


CONTINENTAL 


COSTUME FOR THE ENGLISHWOMAN “ BOUTIQUE FANTASQUE” 
BY LEON BAKST 


(Reproduced from * The Story of Leon Bakst's Life,’’ Alexander Kogan Publishing Company and The Bayard Press) 


PLATE 76 


CONTINENTAL 


DESIGN FOR THE COSTUME OF A “ BOUFFON” IN “ CHOUT” 
BY M. LARIONOV 
PLATE 77 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR “ BOUTIQUE FANTASQUE” 
BY LEON BAKST 


(Reproduced from “ The Story of Leon Bakst’s Life,’’ Alexander Kogan Publishing Company and the Bayard Press) 


PLATE. 78 


CONTINENTAL 


PROJECTED DESIGN FOR AN ACT DROP 
BY VICTOR BARTHE 
PLATE 79 


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CONTINENTAL 


DESIGN FOR A COSTUME IN A RUSSIAN PLAY 
BY MICHAEL ANDREENKO 
PLATE 82 


CONTINENTAL 


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DESIGN FOR A COSTUME 
BY MICHAEL ANDREENKO 
PLATE 88 


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CONTINENTAL 


1 anp 2. DESIGNS FOR COSTUMES BY ANDRE DERAIN 

3 anp 4. DESIGNS FOR COSTUMES IN “ ROMEO ET JULIETTE” 
BY JEAN VICTOR HUGO 

PLATE 86 


CONTINENTAL 


COSTUME FOR “SAMSON AND DELILAH ” 
: BY ISAAC GRUNEWALD 
PLATE 87 


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PLATE 91 


BY FRITZ SCHUMACHER 


DESIGN FOR “ MACBETH ” 


CONTINENTAL 


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FAH ” 


COSTUME FOR OPERA ‘“ FAY-YEN 
DESIGNED BY STOWITTS 


(By courtesy of M. & J. de Brunoff.) 


PLATE 92 


CONTINENTAL 
pre: : j Pole? 
Bec ILD SKRAVT. 


COSTUME DESIGN FOR “ DIE RAUBER ” 
BY EMIL ORLIK 
PLATE 93 


CONTINENTAL 


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DESIGN FOR COSTUME IN ‘“ ARIADNE AUF NAXOS ” 


BY ERNST STERN 
PLATE 94 


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COSTUME DESIGN FOR “ARIADNE AUF NAXOS” 
BY ERNST STERN 


(Reproduced from Portfolio, published by Adolph Firstner) 


PLATE. 95 


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CONTINENTAL 


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PLATE 98 


DESIGN FOR STAGE SETTING BY FELIX CZIOSSEK 


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CONTINENTAL 


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COSTUME FOR LOHENGRIN BY F. FEDOROVSKY 


(Photo “Art et Décoration’’) 


PLATE 102 


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PLATE 104 


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CONTINENTAL 


SE 


PLATE 106 


4 
4 


HUS GLIEI 


CONTINENTAL 


MARIONETTES BY KURT 
SCHMIDT (Reproduced from 


* Die Bahne im Bauhaus’’) 


DESIGN BY OSKAR 
SCHLEMMER (Reproduced from 


“Die Buhne im Bauhaus ”’) 


PLATE 107 


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CONTINENTAL 


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PLATE 108 


DANTON’ 
BY OSKAR STR 


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DESIGN FOR 


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CONTINENTAL 


Aw rem ma wy an at | 


YM BiG] ia coms 
Banya AHI 


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Brén Jae 


PLATE 109 


DESIGN FOR “ FIDELIO”’ (SALZBURG MUSICAL FESTIVAL) BY CLEMENS HOLZMEISTER 


O1Il ALV’ Id 


(,, WOINBI099T 39 WV,, 104d) 
VAOdOd ~¢ 1 Ad 
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CONTINENTAL 


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SRE OI thet rae 
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TETITEATRO. . 


TETITEATRO, “ CONCEPTION FOR A TRAGEDY ” 
BY ALBERTO MARTINI 
PLATE 111 


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PLATE Sliz2 


DESIGN FOR STAGE SETTING BY A. BARANOWSI 


und A. 


Neuzeitliche Bihnen-Malerei’”’ by A. Baranowsky 


“a 


(Reproduced from 


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UNITED STATES 


BY JOHN WENGER 
PLATE 115 


, HUDSON THEATRE, NEW YORK), 


STAGE SETTING FOR ‘“ POPPY GOD,” ACT III (SELWYN PRODUCTION 


UNITED STATES 


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” ene ‘ r 
ee Bites be 


(1) “ HAMLET,” ACT V., SCENE I. 


2) “ THE SAINT ” (PORTICO OF A SEMINARY AT LAS FLORES, N. MEXICO) 
DESIGNED BY ROBERT EDMOND JONES 
PLATE 116 ° 


(1) 


UNITED STATES 


ae 


“-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA ” SCENE II. 
(2) “ KING RICHARD III:,” ACT V., SCENE IV. 
DESIGNED BY ROBERT EDMOND JONES 


(The illustrations on this and the preceding page are reproduced from 
** Drawings for the Theatre," by Robert Edmond Jones, Published by 


Theatre Arts Inc.) 
PEALE t17 


UNITED STATES 


(1) DANTE MASKS 
(2) PROJECT FOR DANTE’S “ DIVINE COMEDY ” 
BY NORMAN-BEL GEDDES 


(The illustrations on this and the following page are reproduced from © The Divine 
Comedy,’’ by Norman-Be] Geddes, Published by Theatre Arts Inc.) 


PLATE 118 


UNITED STATES 


PROJECTS FOR DANTE’S “ DIVINE COMEDY ” 
BY NORMAN-BEL GEDDES 
PLATE 119 


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